This is kind of a story about deer contraception, but there’s a whole lot more to it than that. Gelfman-Randazzo uses a weird bit of local lore to tell a much more personal story.

A deer stares into the camera. An ear-sized tag dangles from her lobe, like the world’s biggest cartilage piercing. It’s dusk. A researcher crashes through the woods after a different doe he’s just darted. He waits for the anesthesia to kick in. For her to fall unconscious. Nearby, a deer is hit by a car on a backroad. Under the darkening foliage, the researcher injects a shot of contraceptive vaccine. He strains to see what he is doing. On the other side of town, a deer chews a tuft of daylilies. The light slips out of the scene, like someone with something to hide. I’m a senior in high school, and this is my town.