The Most Dangerous Game

“Hunting is weird,” I thought to myself as I walked to my car.

My office is located in the middle of the woods and with the change of daylight savings time I now find myself confronted with woodland creatures almost every night.

The continuous viewing of deer always makes me think of hunting.

I’ve never known someone who hunted.

At least that’s what I thought until I murdered a zombie.

As I was describing to my dad how surprisingly difficult it was to shoot he nodded and responded, “yes, I know. I was once in the Army.”

“Oh, yeah, I always forget about that,” I replied.

“And I used to hunt when I was younger,” he added.

This was, to me, shocking information.

Never having met or befriended someone who shot animals, I have always thought of them as the other.

Yet, apparently, my entire life one has been inside the house.

I knew as a child he clubbed rabbits, a strange visual as he grew up in the city of St. Louis, a place once overrun with bunnies (or so I’ve been told).

This jarred my perception of my dad and I started bombarding him with questions.

“Wait, so you actually killed animals?”

“With a gun?”

“Was it horrible?”

“Like, you shot them to death?”

“That’s how hunting works, yes,” he replied.

I started to wonder… just who is this guy?

“So, wait, if you grew up as a hunter, why did you stop?” I queried.

With his response, “you have to spend time outside when it’s cold,” my vision of my father snapped back into place.

But it’s with that knowledge of my hunting exposure that you should read the following thoughts.

“Hunting is weird,” I thought. “I mean, I walk by deer every day and they look up and stare and I walk close with my huge black camera, clicking and clacking, and eventually they meander away.”

“They never seem particularly worried about my presence, and they’re certainly not hard to spot.”

“Is there really that much pride in being able to get close enough to one to kill it?”

“I’m not even trying and here I am, with a perfect shot.”

“I mean, it seems like anyone can hunt a deer. They just don’t seem all that intelligent.”

“No, to be at all impressive you’d need to hunt something aware of the chase, that has the mental capacity to hide and plot.”

“Like a person.”

“Yeah, you successfully hunt a person, that’d be something you could brag about.”

Then I reached my car and realized I should never, ever think about hunting again.

Sometimes I worry even myself,

Megan

The Most Dangerous Game

Tagged as: I stalk woodland creatures, I'm just as strange in real life