The Official Website of Robert Slatt
May 20, 2006 I was relieved to leave the hospital. The doctors were confident in my progress and assured me the metal still lodged in my body wouldn’t shift or cause further harm. I had to keep a bandage over my right eye. It was uncomfortable, but I could live with it. What scared me…
May 17 – May 19, 2006 Morning didn’t arrive in a sunrise. It arrived in a sliver of light from the hallway—thin but insistent, like a blade cutting through the night’s remains. When the nurses opened the door with their bright “Good morning!” the glow followed them into the room as if the world itself…
May 17th 2006 2 a.m. The ceiling faded to black as my mind clawed backward, through blood-soaked clothes and flashing lights, through the sound of gunshots and the silence that followed. The room around me was cold and too bright in places, dim in others. That strange hospital half-light that makes you feel both watched…
This chapter includes graphic depictions of gun violence and traumatic loss. If this type of content is triggering or painful for you, consider whether you wish to continue at this time. May 16, 2006 I woke up around 6:30 a.m., groggy but ready for the day. The house was quiet except for the soft tick…
May 2006 May began with rain—relentless, saturating rain that seemed determined to seep into every part of the farm. The ground was so waterlogged that mud puddles replaced whole patches of grass. Even the alpacas were irritated. We let them out to graze along the hillside, and they bunched together, annoyed, lifting their feet like…
April 2006 Spring of 2006 arrived gently, as if the farm itself was trying to soothe us. After the chaos of winter—the pulp wood fire, the poisoned ducks, the constant tension with Dale—we were worn thin, but not defeated. What held us together were the small routines, the spiritual rhythms that shaped each day with…
April 2006 It was the middle of April, one of those in-between seasons when the days felt warm enough to make you hopeful but the nights still carried a winter bite. I woke to my dad shaking me gently, his voice low but urgent. I followed him toward the master bedroom, noticing a red flicker…
March 2006 – April 2006 Spring break arrived, and even though I had been looking forward to visiting my brother and his wife in Boise, a part of me hesitated. The post office fight had only happened a week earlier, and I felt an uneasy responsibility to stay close to my parents—just in case something…
Summer 1989 I’m back in the garage on Gargasz Drive. The brown Cape Cod I called home until my freshman year of high school, the one with the garage tucked along the south side of the house. It’s eighth grade again, and I’m barely 110 pounds soaking wet. My dad stands in front of me…
“When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out and deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth…” Revelation 20:7-8 January 2006 – March 2006 That verse from Revelation—Satan released from his prison to roam and deceive—kept circling in my mind after the trial. I…