One Night

Without warning, Pheobe, a mid-height African American woman of 30 years, is startled awake one night by her home alarm system going off. Many years of listening for babies, allows her to go from deep sleep to full wakefulness to identify the threat! What is that sound? Quickly she recognized the alarm system and wonders who or what had triggered it!

         Ignoring the alarm, she climbs out of bed, grabs a robe, putting it on, and quietly walks down the long hallway toward the front of the house. Knowing it like the back of her hand, she easily moves through the inky darkness. An odd clinking sound and several short light flashes greet her, as she rounds the corner into the Dining room/Living room area. The outside dust-to-dawn light shines through the Dining room windows illuminating the dark silhouette of a man! A man has broken into her home!

         A bit freaked out at first, then suddenly angry, Phoebe steps quickly into the room, turns on the overhead light, and demands, “What the hell are you doing in my home?!”

         Fully illuminated the man is white, of medium build, dressed in a black and red flannel shirt with tan bibbed overalls, workman’s boots and with red hair, slightly balding on top. He stands there quietly blinking his eyes for a few minutes to allowing them to adjust to the change in light, then says, “A girl at the bar up the road says that this house is empty, so I can come and get whatever I want!”

         In a way, the girl is right for about six months the house was empty, but now it isn’t, although Phoebe is currently living alone. She says, “It’s not empty anymore, so go pass the word!” She blusters the man out of the front door, which is how he got in, and watches as he fades into the darkness of the tree-lined driveway. With her heart racing, she checks the rest of the house, turning on every light in the place, to look for more uninvited guests while calling 9-1-1. Once confident there is no one else in or around her home, she resets the alarm.

         Then she waits – all thoughts of sleep gone! Scanning the security tapes, she is happy to note that no one else had accompanied or followed the man during or after the break-in. While searching the house initially, she identifies the clinking sound she heard as the handle on a brass cricket box. The handle fell over hitting the side of it when the man took it down from the shelf. Even without the alarm, the clinking sound would have been enough to awakened her because it was not one of the usual night sounds in or around her home. She is used to the light traffic on the street, the occasional train passing by, sounds of night birds and frogs singing, even the stray cats that frequently visit or stay on her back porch.

As for the short light flashes – before she surprised him by turning on the Dining room light, she recalls that he was holding a cigar and a pocket lighter – the light flashes were his attempts to light the cigar. All this passed through her mind as well as the details of the encounter while waiting for the police to arrive.

         Twenty minutes later, though it felt longer, a police car pulls up the hill to her house. From the front porch, she tells him what happened and includes the description of the man. The police officer leaves to check the neighborhood for any signs of him. The officer returns half an hour later, opens the back door of his car, illuminating the inside. A man is sitting in the back seat. The officer asks, “Is this the man who broke into your house?”

         Looking closely from the safety of her front porch, Phoebe says, “Yes.”

The officer asks the man, “Do you know this lady?”

         “Yes,” the man says quickly. “She’s my girlfriend, we had a fight.”

         “Is this true, Ma’am?” the officer asks.

         “No! I’ve never seen him before in my life - before finding him in my house, that is,” Phoebe says sharply.

         “Ma’am, did you know he was carrying a weapon?” the officer asks.

         “No,” she says as cold chills run down her spine at her narrow escape. She shivers, hugging herself and rubbing her arms briskly. “What happens now?” she asks.

         “Don’t leave town, there may be more questions after I file my report,” the officer says calmly. He closes the back door of his squad car, climbs in and leaves. Phoebe turns off most of the lights in the house, double checks the alarm, braces both the front door and the back door with chairs, just in case. With heart still pounding, she climbs back into her bed, knowing she has to work in the morning, she tries her best to fall asleep. Tomorrow, she will buy two new dead bolts!

Arriving a bit late for work with bags under her eyes, testimony to her failed attempt at sleep, her boss Becky says, “You look terrible, are you alright?”

Phoebe explains about the break-in. Becky says, “You’re welcome to sleep at my house until you’re ready to go home.”

“Thank you, I’d like that,” Phoebe replies. In the meantime, she goes to the hardware store on her lunchbreak. Deciding to stay a couple of nights with Becky before returning home, even though the alarm did come on and did wake her, she still didn’t feel quite so safe there. After she installs the deadbolts, she is able to sleep a lot safer.

A few days later the news is all over the office, the man who broke into her home had earlier in the week, broken into an auto garage taking some tools, and a number of homes stealing jewelry and money. He was arrested the night of the break-n and charged for it and the other crimes. She is glad that he is no longer free to cause panic and fear in their neighborhood.

The End.