Cliff Aliperti

Read Deer Xing now!Do you live near any deer?There are deer all over Long Island, but I’m in a residential neighborhood without any woods in the development⁠—there is a sump across the street though. A couple years ago, a neighbor told me there were deer grazing the sump, and I kind of shrugged it off like Alex at the beginning of “Deer Xing.” The first time I saw any with my own eyes was close to what I describe when Alex peeked out the window and locked eyes with the buck. In fact, I consider that paragraph the heart of the story as those were the feelings that stuck with me that I needed to get down, and I grew the rest of the story out of that before eventually sitting down for my first draft.One of the main themes/lessons that comes through in this story that I think about a lot is how easily humans get used to things and how quickly the magical and majestic turn into the ordinary. Is this an idea you think about often?Definitely, and vice versa. It doesn’t take much beyond…