Olga Shomska

Deer Story

We all knew that the rain will be heavy. We got used to it. We built a hotel in the town center—high and large, to place all residents. We actually lived there all the time. My room was on the third floor. It was a nice room, not big, with floral wallpaper. The flowers were green and ugly. I hated them. But I had no choice. I wish I had a room like Ann—with sunflowers on the walls, sunflowers to give me sunlight as we did not have any windows in our rooms. The windows were in the corridor. We contemplated the bad weather out of them.

There was a mirror in my room. When I looked into that mirror, I often saw different reflections of myself. One day I was a short-haired blonde. Then, the other day: a teenage boy. I did not know who I really was.

I had no friends. I liked Ann, but she paid attention to me only when I looked like a man. Some days I could get into her room and admire the sunflowers on her wall. Other days she pretended she did not know me.

The day of heavy rain came. I was sitting alone over the river. Suddenly, the river-flow increased. That was the first sign. I ran across the river while it was still shallow.

I ran toward the hotel. I was not scared, but I had to hurry up. The rain had started.

I reached the hotel and came inside. I had a feeling that I’d never been here. I got lost in numerous corridors that led nowhere. I climbed so many stairs that I got tired. I sat on the stairway, exhausted and desperate.

Who am I? Where am I?

I thought about sunflowers.

Suddenly, I understood where I was. I was on my third floor. I went to my room. I couldn’t stand the green flowers on the wall, so I left the room without looking in the mirror.

I found myself in the corridor where people stood by the windows and looked at the storm. The storm was stronger than usual. The water came from the hills and washed away everything in its path. I noticed that another flow of water had washed away the firewood which peasants prepared to heat their houses. Peasants did not live in the hotel. They had a different religion. We never talked to them, just watched them from our windows.

I saw Ann among the residents. She paid no attention to me. It meant I didn’t look like a man. It didn’t upset me. I just looked at the water.

The rain weakened. The dark clouds started to part. The water level was falling in the river. I noticed something in the water. Those were horns. Many horns rose above the water surface. I counted twenty horns.

The water level dropped even lower. I saw animal heads with horns. I understood they were deer. They walked through the riverbed. Their necks appeared next. All of us stood by the windows and looked, spellbound, at the deer.

The clouds disappeared completely and gave place for the sun. The gentle sun illuminated the deer’s backs. The deer kept on walking through the riverbed. I felt good. I felt like a deer in the river.

Olga Shomska is a scriptwriter and writer from Kyiv, Ukraine. Her story “Flash of lightning” was included in the short story collection “Kudafudra” and published in 2020 in Ukraine. Her first script for the full-length drama called “Island” is at the development stage by Italian film production Bedeschifilm, directed by Giovanni Bedeschi. Currently, Olga cooperates with the Portuguese production “Bando à Parte” by adapting the script to a full-length feature film. “Deer Story” came to Olga as a dream on her birthday, and she printed it on her typewriter the next day.