The ghost stag

Thunderous hooves striking basalt and arduous turf, the beast roared its approval of the land with rhythmic beating footfalls.
Shooting out from the treeline came the white stag - a creature so tremendous that the onlooker was said to shade his eyes from its radiance.
Here stood Henry, the great photographer, the consummate filmmaker, with his sights trained upon the stag.
This animal, breathtaking in its realism, Henry could only afford to glimpse through the thick lens of his camera. Its reflection, squeezed and twisted through the barrel of an 800mm lens, came to the eye as a perfect replica of its image, as if you were standing mere feet from the delicious creature.
How rare a find, was this stag. Everything related was now Henry’s. He would name said stag, he would describe the rituals and trials, friends and lovers of the animal. He would report on it all and pass the information to the world - a world that didn’t even realise it was waiting.
All day long he watched the creature, he snapped and reviewed, he filmed and played back. Amazing footage: eating, running, calling, standing and looking. The mundane became majestic, almost supernatural, in the presence of the white stag.
Ancient Celtic cultures were wary of the beast. They recognised it had great power, its presence in a local glen would bring forth soothsayers, melancholy for the lives of the landowner and his family. Some even say the white stag is behind the myth of the unicorn.
But Henry forgot these flotsam mythologies, for his childhood was fuelled by but one story - that of the ghost stag.
This animal appeared around once a century - often before a time of war or other great suffering. Its advent was traditionally seen by farmers as the crying out of the land. The animalisation of nature to bring forth a message of unnatural events to come. It was as if the ghost stag were spat forth by an acrid earth to run, whisper and warn of a brewing apocalypse.
These were the thoughts and fine wonders that filled Henry’s mind as he shot away at the beast - his images growing more graceful, more godlike with each passing hour, with each memory card filled with photographs.
It was at roughly 3pm that the white stag turned its nose to the east and sensed Henry’s distant presence. Camouflaged in a green hide, tied up between a large bushel and a solitary pine tree, sat Henry. And as the ghost stag turned its head, so that it was the direct peer of his eyes that was squeezed and shunted down the telescopic barrel of Henry’s lens, the cameraman’s finger stopped firing shots off at the deer and froze for the first time in three hours.
It crept forward at first, stealthy, into and out of heather strewn ditches and hollows. It haunted the moorland like a legendary wight, seeking the unfortunate traveller in order to feast on his vitality. Then it darted north-easterly, splashing through a full winter stream and causing other deer to worry away into higher ground.
As the ghost stag crossed the byrne, effectively entering a rival’s territory, it occurred to Henry that the beast may be nearing on purpose - may be coming for him.
The focal length of his lens had reached it’s lowest capacity now and a new fitment would be necessary to apply to the camera. Of course, it is rare that stags should come so near, especially with the rutting season approaching, but Henry was prepared and rolled out of his camper chair to pick up the video camera - which was capable of a much more diverse range - and slowly zoomed out.
Steadily, the blur of the middle distance gave out and the eloquent stride of the white stag filled the frame. Then it began bounding up the hill, a full-charge for the tent, and it had roared a sneering cry before its launch.
With one hand, Henry held the video camera very steady and kept the brown eyes of the deer in shot and in focus with an insane determination. With the other hand he picked up his old analogue SLR camera and held it up to the flap in the sopping hide. Flicking the switch to ‘rapid/continuous’ shooting mode, the camera was able to fire off tens of shots into the face of the animal, lit by the light of a myriad camera flashes.
The ghost stag reared and bellowed, bellowed and reared, before dropping to its feet and munching the untouched wild grasses that grow in such heath regions. It milled and rested for fifteen minutes or so before disappearing over a steep rise.
Henry’s heartbeat then returned to normal, as did most things within the world. Henry blew the air out from his lungs and slowly wiped his brow.
He would look at the pictures, but not yet. He would wait. He would wait to stare at the creature, the great white beast, the ghost stag. He would wait, because he realised that this life is transitory , as are the actions of everything in it.
What if the shots were blurred, what if the lens was smeared, what if the stag seemed less than brilliant white?
The ghost stag could not be viewed for the moment, because, in Henry’s mind at least, the images would be burned indelibly, perfectly.
It’s a photographer’s prerogative to notice the flaws in an image and, sometimes, to remember the flaws alone.