Prologue

GRAND FATHER IS ASKING FOR ME!

         One day, dad had gone over to see Grandpa. As he so, often had. However he did not return to home. We had gone confused and worried. Me and mom wanted until we fell asleep. His belongings were gone as the sun does rise into the sky.

         We do not know, why? I took a walk to find him. The road was clear of debrie a storm had rolled in. He had left to be with him, in his Rambler. Pa was a strong man a man who believed in the lord. It was his cross, he carried it with him as though it was a mercy to do this. He seemed to be afraid, of what I do not know?

         I found the car had not been on the road, there was no car. That I could see? For miles, but where it be. I did not see, the road was narrow as a back road could be. Moonshiners used this roads as their way to make their bread. It was best not say much any way.

         They would have their way. pa would say. They would pay come judgement day. They would pay!

         Pap winced as he had his say, he looked nervously the way to Grandpa. He seemed not to wish to be, any part of this. Grandpa was feared more by far than the moonshiners, why no one knew?

         Grandpa did not pray, or so pa would say. He never went to church. To hear what the preachers would say. He had his way, with drink and women. His wife died long ago. He said,"She left?"

         Pa did not agree. Grandpa had a scar across his cheek, that would not stop to bleed for about a week. The scar was deep. He had a sign on his left wrist of a circle, that was puckered and yellow. This scar we did not know where or what it was. He never spoke of it.

         It would appear when one of the men folk would disappear. Grandpa used to say, the swamp took them away. The swamp was vast and deep. Where it began no one knew, on one ocassion a body floated, bloated to the extreme was upon the surface. Between the vast stench and the reeds, cat tails and willow wispes that grew there. Serpents slithered across the ravine, where the body had been. It was clothed, leechs were her clothing, if it was a her. I am not sure.

         The clothing had been as his wife had been clothed in. It was a sin. The way she was done in. I crept across the plain of moss that covered the water
with its stagnant green. I slipped and fell to my hip in the murky sea of green.
My foot did not reach the bottom.

         I was afraid I would to be in its coffin. A blackman went after me, he stormed into the murk to vanish in the brackish water. He stepped forward and that was all, we saw him do.

         The murk made him vanish as a leech does to blood. I saw his hand reach out to me. I reached out and almost touched his fingers with mine.

         Grandpa said,"It twas a sign!"

         Where he had been is a black rent in the murky waters, I pulled myself free
from the reeds and the body came too. It was wearing a burlap skirt, and a cotton top, her bosom was green with the sea weed taht bred there. Her face was turned into the water. It lifted it from the pool, like a fool. That I be. I wanted to see, who she be. It was plain to see, she could have been you or me. As I could not see any features that she had to make her a she.

         I saw a locket that Grandma wore on her neck, that was what told me, who she be? Grandpa did not look to see? He just drew his gun and walked away. She was dead as dead could be. Her eyes were no more, there was only grey mass and gore that was what her face was. Cuss.

         I know, back to the car, sorry I went that far. The car was not on the road or between the house and his. It was as if it never existed. I knew it did as I insisted I would ride in it one day. Pa said, "I could!"

         "That meant, I would! He said, I could!" I thought, as I did not know what to do? The car was no where? It was not new? I sat there and I stewed. Watching as a black as hell storm blew into the swamp.

         Trees hung dense with green weeds, and their branches broke as they spoke to the clouds to not be what they were to be. The wood snapped as twig would beneath my shoed feet.

         We were poor, but I had shoed feet. The storm rocked the swamp, its mass rose to take in land that had not been sea. It creeped and crawled upon the sprawl that was mine and my ma's now, that pa was no more. THe revenues came to make their score.

         Years later I found the car in the swamp along ways away from me and ma. Grandpa told me, to forget I ever saw him or it again. I live with this regret.
Ma handed me a book, for me to take a look. The book was dirty and yellowed pages told me it had been ages, since anyone had seen it.

         On its pages were blood that was used to write well into the night. It was a deathly sight, I read, but I did not wish to read. My hands trembled as I turned the parchment sheets, that crumbled and fell. It seemed as though who wrote had found their way to hell.