Immediate and Long-Term Effects

Disbelief at first. Then anger, outrage. How could somebody do this? What kind of person?

Then fear. What if I’d been home? What if they come back?

A sense of violation. I didn’t know this person. They left traces, like an opened can of Coke that I didn’t know I had. Maybe it was from Thanksgiving, or maybe it wasn’t even mine. They smoked a cigarette in my living room.

Now a sense of sudden panic and regret whenever I can’t find something. Maybe they took it like they took the TV and my father’s gold watch.

It’s been a year.

Friday Fictioneers

 

22 comments

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  1. Sandra

    You captured the sense of invasion and resultant paranoia beautifully. And I speak as one who knows, having slept through a burglary and coming down next morning to the loss of many things that were valuable to me. The gradual reveal of the extent of the loss over ensuing days… you got that.

  2. Jelli

    Exactly! Exactly how it feels… go to look for something, can’t find it, realize that it was probably stolen… having a good cry, moving on.

  3. Lynn Love

    That sense of violation comes through clearly, Josh. And I like the broken glass as a metaphor too – your narrator has taped the shards together, but underneath there’s still that break. Nicely done

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