You want to know
Or maybe you don't, but I do
It’s 3:13 am and large hoofed animals are playing tag on the deck below your bedroom window. They sound like a herd of buffalo running across a plain, if the plain had wooden planks. You’ve never actually heard buffalo stampeding except in the movies, so you’re probably grossly over-exaggerating – the hooves on wood only sound as loud as a herd of buffalo because they shook your sleepy brain awake. It’s usual to hear one, maybe two passes across the deck, but the animals have been running for 15 minutes straight, which is probably another gross exaggeration because time is warped in the middle of the night when you’d rather be sleeping.
You wait for the noise to stop but it doesn’t. You get up to investigate, seeing nothing but dark out the window. Remembering you need glasses to see clearly, you walk back to your side of the bed and feel for them on your night table. Back at the window, the galloping has stopped and you still see nothing down on the deck, but you look up and there are so many white stars in the clear dark sky that you forget about the buffalo/moose/deer/foxes/groundhogs running on the deck. You consider going down to the dock for a wider view of the stars, but you remember the animals, and also the bats and insects that come out at night; you remember it’s 3:20 am and get back in bed.
All is quiet outside now but the hooves are running in your head. You worry an animal tripped on the long blue hose snaking down the freshly power washed stairs, left there to resume deck cleaning in the morning. You hope no animal was hurt by your laziness. You worry they may have chewed through the garden hose, or attacked the new power washer also left sitting on the deck. You worry there will be piles of animal scat to clean, then you hope there is so you can identify the visitors. Then you imagine them chasing each other with glee, taking turns holding the hose gently between sharp teeth to spray cool lake water on warm fur, but surely you turned off the faucet?
Most of all, you wonder what animals were making all that racket. Too fast for the porcupine you saw waddling on the driveway yesterday and too heavy-footed for the squirrels and chipmunks. It was a galloping of long hoofed legs, not short padded ones. You want to know which neighbours come out to play at night, whether they’re dangerous, and if you need to worry about going outside alone after dark. You want to know.
You wake up in the morning still wondering about the animals in the night. The hose and power washer are untouched and there’s no poop on the deck. Then you wonder about yourself, about why you’re the kind of person who needs to know things, like I do. Why not roll over and go back to sleep? When a DNA test uncovered a secret father and sisters and aunts and cousins I didn’t know I had, when I saw pictures of these people who looked like me, when they were curious about me, I wanted to know them too. Not everyone wants this, some are happy with what they already understand about who they are. Most of all, I wanted to understand myself, as if the mystery of me could be solved by these strangers in my genes; their genetic footprints run loud and free within me now. “But what about us?” I hear Mom and Dad and my sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins who aren’t in my DNA ask. Oh, you are still running within me too, how could you not be? I know who you all are now, and I’m learning who I want to be.
I was totally immersed in this. Great piece; loved your way into the central question. Maybe you need an animal cam for the deck…lol. Also: power washing is so satisfying!