Deer's Tears

Alice felt herself slowly awakening from her nap. For a moment she was tempted to open her eyes, but found that she couldn't. No matter, the drowsy state was relaxing, even more so than it had to be as she and John were driving down the meditative Center Road. The journey was a constant relaxing cycle of ups and downs, in the sense that the smooth and largely straight road was constantly rising and dropping on the hilly terrain, with occasional slight turns to the right and left. All in all the drive was thoroughly relaxing. Alice took a moment to stretch her right arm, John turned to briefly look at his wife with a smile as she finished stretching. She lets out a sigh and takes a moment to rub her eyes before turning to John, now facing the road.

"Uhhh, how, long was I out?" she asked tired but curiously, before looking out to see the scenery before her. They had just left a part of the road with forests on either side, entering a beautiful wide open space comprised of large fields and pastures on either side, with Center Road contrasting from them as a division within. Alice chuckles as she excitedly sits up, entranced by the beauty of the landscape. The setting sun also illuminated one side of the road while the other was darker.

"Wow..." she says under her breath in admiration. She sits back and relaxes as the couple continues down the road.

"It's been forty minutes Alice" John replies calmly, having been relaxed from the smooth drive just like his wife. "We only got fifteen minutes left to go, so be sure to enjoy the view." he says, then putting his right hand on his wife's left one. They spent a few more minutes in silence taking in the scenery of endless green fields surrounding them.

"You know I'm glad Mary asked us to join her, in honesty I am a bit nervous, if the protest gets as wild as some of the ones she described then I think I have every right to be." John quickly follows up.

"You don't have to worry about anything" he says, gesturing with his right hand. "Believe me nothing's going to happen, I'll be right there and we'll all have each other backs. Besides we'll finally get to meet some of Mary's friends in the community, think of how much fun that'll be. Besides, she's really passionate about this."

"You can say that again." replies Alice.

"Plus, she's certain the park authorities will listen to reason considering, well you know, the incidents that took place."

"I suppose, we can only hope so but it's their business in the end. I'm worried that it'll only end with insults and fighting.

"Well she is certain she can get the point across. You know how many accidents happened in just the past two weeks? Nine."

"Nine?" Alice replies, shocked.

"Yeah, the park members have been trying to cover it up when it happened during the first few days but then it all got leaked to the press and it was all over." John takes a moment to adjust his position, reaching into his pant pocket to take out his mobile. He looks away for a few moments to type in the passcode, and the screen opens to the browser showing the article he was on.

"See?" He says, giving it to Alice. She takes the phone and scrolls through the article, skimming through the passages. Nine victims found dead as of Tuesday, police and public baffled and in fear.

"She says the game reserve heads are on edge, it's bad for business and luckily they can't do anything about it. Hopefully they can listen to reason and shut it down, they can't afford any further tragic publicity."

"I hope so too but you know it sure took us a hell of a long time to listen to reason ourselves. Let's just hope they wise up sooner rather than later."

She continues to scroll through the article as they start to leave the open space, coming across another short series of forests on either side of the road. For a moment, John takes his eyes off the road as he looks over to see Alice continuing to scroll down. As the road was long and with little sharp turns he keeps his foot on the pedal not realizing that he's casually driving at 55 miles per hour. He faces back and forth from the road to Alice, concerned that she'll scroll to the bottom.