Four in the Morning
By Santino Prinzi
I slammed on my breaks and the car stopped in front of the stag lying in the middle of the road. The early sunlight catches its antlers and its fur gleamed as it raised its head. We locked eyes with each other; the stag was undeterred and peaceful, yet here I was sitting, panting, at the wheel of my car. The stag stretches out across the road before standing and faces the passenger seat. A duffel bag stuffed with a handful of clothes and my old wedding band. It struts, in its own time, from the concrete tongue into the belly of the leafless forest. We share an understanding.
Santino Prinzi is currently an English Literature with Creative Writing student at Bath Spa University, and was awarded the 2014/15 Bath Spa University Flash Fiction Prize. His flash fiction and prose poetry has been published, or is forthcoming, in various places including Flash Fiction Magazine, the 2014 and 2015 National Flash Fiction Day anthologies, Unbroken Literary Journal, Spelk, Vine Leaves Literary Journal, and others. For more information check him out at www.tinoprinzi.wordpress.com or follow him on Twitter: @tinoprinzi. (Updated September 2015)
