JOURNAL ENTRY: COLLECTING THE DEAD 2026

 

There is no one in the driver’s seat so perhaps the adult woman was the driver and then was tossed to the passenger side.  Robert is there and he has a potato sack in his hand and a few more bags that he has looped through his belt.  He too is wearing shorts and has taken off his shirt.  I am maybe 8 years old and Robert drove me out here under the guise of collecting some baby birds.  That proposition made me excited and caused me to feel a sense of anticipation as he drove me for more than an hour away from the ‘house of hate’.  He was looking through my window as we drove on this dirt road and then he suddenly stopped and was out of the vehicle before I was.  He had darted to the back of the blue van he used to own and taken his shirt off, changed his shoes for boots, and then grabbed those potato-looking bags.  I followed him since I thought the bags where for the birds we would be collecting and I was excited to see what type of species since he continually told me, “Wait and see”.  Then as I followed him down the hill and into that thicket the smell was the first thing to alert me that something was wrong.