On death

Driving home from the babysitter's house, Robey asks, "Are we all going to die?"

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"Are we all going to die?"

I pause. And stall. And double check every mirror to make sure there's no oncoming cars. Is he having a premonition?

Look, we've talked about death before, so he knows we all die eventually.I know he knows that, so that's not what he's asking.

"But do you mean today?"

And he just repeats it again. Just the question, "Are we all going to die?"

Then Moe pipes in with THIS, of all things: "You go to the corn field to die." I ignore him.

"Robey, I don't know what you mean. You know we all die eventually, right. We've talked about that."

"But are we all going to die?"

Moe again: "You go to the cornfield to die."

"Today? Right now? Is that what you mean? Are we going to die today?"

"Yes. Are we going to die today."

"You go to the cornfield to die."

"No. Why would you say that?"

"The workers came to fix the gas at Michelle's house, and Wilder* said we're all going to die because they set it wrong. He said we're all going to die."

"You go to the cornfield to die."

"No! We're not going to die. And you DON'T go to the cornfield to die."

"I didn't think so," said Robey. "What about this. Are there flowers that can kill you?"

"If you eat them? Or touch them?" I ask.

"Eat them. Wilder said these flowers at Michelle's could kill you."

"No. There aren't flowers at Michelle's that will kill you. Some plants are poisonous, but I think you usually you have to crush them or cook them or mix them with something else first. Michelle doesn't have any poisonous flowers."

"I'm not going to believe Wilder about anything anymore. Wait. Can you eat grasshoppers? He said you could eat grasshoppers."

"Yeah, actually. You can."

* name changed but probably not enough to protect the innocent