The deer by the ticket window

Original fiction extract.

At the little station, the first ticket of the morning had not yet been sold. The clerk was arranging change when a deer stepped through the open end of the platform. It stopped beside the ticket window, close enough for its breath to cloud the lower pane. Nobody moved to open the sliding glass.

Its legs were four uncertain strokes beneath the heavy softness of its body. One ear turned towards the timetable’s rattle while the other kept watch on the empty track. Behind the glass, the clerk’s bright sleeve froze halfway to the counter. The deer bent its head towards a fallen paper cup, then drew back as though the object had answered rudely. In the station’s square arrangement of doors and notices, its curved neck seemed a question nobody had planned to receive. Even the loudspeaker’s crackle sounded suddenly ill-mannered.

A porter held the side gate open without approaching. The deer looked towards the gap, waited, and moved through it into the wet grass beyond. The clerk lowered his hand. Only then did somebody laugh, quietly, and ask for a return ticket.

Choose three powerful words or phrases from the extract above. Analyse how the writer uses language to present the unexpected deer in the station.

Write about 200 to 250 words.