Disturbing Story

Marcus just narrated a story to me while looking out of the living room window. His favourite pastime these days is to look out of the window and tell me all about what he sees on the road. Gist of his story after some prompting as follows.

Marcus: "mama, baby brother in van. Dies in van."

I: "huh? what do you mean by 'he dies in van'?"

Marcus: "yeah, bus is broken. Car got stuck in taxi."

I: "oh I see. What else happened?"

Marcus: "Coach fell down and crashed into van. Baby brother flies away to tree. Milk fell down."

I don't know whether to laugh or worry. Uh-oh... what a disturbing storyline. I asked him if there are any animals involved, and he replied "oh yes, a taxi!" He knows what animals are, but these days, everything he says has something to do with car or bus or taxi or coach.

We have tried to explain the abstract concept of "death" to him before when he watched Nemo and was concerned about where Nemo's mummy went. We told him she was eaten by the barracuda and she died. Explained in more details what that means. Other times, we also explained that if he were to run onto the roads without holding my hands, he may get knocked down by cars etc etc.. hence die... blah blah ... I wonder if he understood it well enough since it is not an easy concept. But he has talked about it recently and the frequency of it scares me. He also told E recently that "papa is going to die". Hmm...