I picked up my brother's car today.

Well, I didn't pick it up, because I can't drive.

So.
I went with two friends to pick up my brother's car today.

Went into the police station.

I was so fine and cool and calm...

The policeman (who was a pretty woman) gave me the keys, and some bit of the engine they took off so no one could steal the car before I got it.

Then she gave me his journal to read.

There'd been such a build-up in my mind about this journal, but there were only 3 entries.

In the first he said he had found god. God, even, with a capital G. He was talking about his plans for the future, the kids he would have..

He sounded happy.

In the second, written two months later, and ten days ago, he sounded dreadful.

He was on antidepressants, and they stopped him from sleeping and generally stuffed him up.

He said he regretted letting his girlfriend go, and that our father doesn't give a stuff about him.

He said he wanted to run a hose from his car's exhaust in his window and die.

And in the third, he said "I love you Dad" and that he was thinking of the lyrics to Adam's Song by Blink 182.

And that was all.

I cried.

I sat there in the little police station and cried my eyes out.

The policeman gave me tissues, and the keys, and the spark plug lead thingy.

And my friends took me to the park.

I would have expected the car would be taken somewhere else, somewhere he'd never been.

But no.

So there we are, with a tin of petrol, ready for one of my friends to drive their car home and the other to drive my brother's car to my house.

And the bloody back right tire is as flat as a very very flat thing.

The guy put a spare on very efficiently, and it started up nicely, and we went home.

It was... I don't know.

Depressing.

Weird.

...but not as bad as I expected somehow.

I mean.... the label from the hose was there under his seat... and I picked it up and looked at it and put it back.

The car smelled funny... but I don't know whether that was reality or my imagination.

There was a piece of paper with GET OUT! written on it in the back seat.

I think he'd put it in the window in case anyone came by too soon.

There was screwed up newspaper everywhere inside.

I need to have a proper weep. But I can't yet. I have to get through to Monday and the funeral first.

Then I can cry as much as I want.

I just hope I *can* by then.

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