#1 – Burglar

If I’m ever caught people are going to ask “Now why would he do that?”

Its a fair question I suppose. I was born into a relatively wealthy family, went to private school and got into an ivy league college. And when I got out I had multiple job offerings waiting for me.

So it would be a fair question to wonder that despite all of those advantages why do I spend my evenings breaking into peoples houses and stealing their shit?

Another question worth asking, although far more esoteric, would be why am I thinking about this right as I’m trying to put enough force into my crowbar to break open this side door but also be quite enough that I don’t wake the neighbors? That question is simpler to answer than the first as I always get reflective at the beginning of a job and just how utterly ridiculous what I’m doing really is.

I get into the house easily enough, I’ve done this enough times where it’s almost second nature and I close the door quietly behind me and look around to get a good look at my surroundings. Nice big house, early twentieth century brownstone. gives off an air of reagalness the tacky interior doesn’t deserve. I step into the living room, seeing nearly every gaudy gadget you could imagine. Jackpot.

I start grabbing things, not really caring what I put into my black gym bag. I notice something over the fireplace, something shiny. It’s a sterling silver picture frame of the banker and his family, beach blonde wife and two little kids. I briefly think about what my intrusion might do to the peace of mind of the kids but then I look around the room again. They’ll be fine, daddy will just throw an x-box at them and all will be forgotten.

I try to get the picture out of the frame (leaving the picture is less a favor to the family as it is to my fence so he doesn’t leave anything the cops could find to lead back to the family) but my gloves leave little wiggle room to get the latches off, so I put it down and decide to make my way upstairs. Electronics are all well and good but just as they did hundreds of years ago gold silver and jewels are the biggest payoffs and the easiest stuff to sell.

As I go up the stairs my minds wanders back to my mini-existential “crisis” from the beginning of doing what I do. The easiest answer would be  that I’m good at it. really really good at it. This isn’t to say I wasn’t good at other things before this because I was, but looking back all of those things I was good at were just preparing me for doing this. Thats the easiest answer but it isn’t true either. Maybe it was the way I was raised, being handed things on a silver platter? Maybe I’m just naturally attracted to taking what I want? Maybe I’m just a sociopath who believes that laws don’t apply to him?

No, no and no. Care to take another go at it?

Upstairs I find the wife’s jewelery box easily enough, and a silver Rolex. I throw them all into my gym bag and think to myself that I should get out while the gettings good. The first thing you learn in situations like this is never to overstay your welcome….mostly because you were never welcomed in the first place.

I walk down the stairs, my gym bag sagging heavily on my shoulder, as I reach the landing I take one last look around making sure I had gotten anything that was of value and portable enough for me to carry inconspicuously. Picked clean. good.

As I go through the door I came through, looking around just to be sure nobody else is around, I start walking towards my car which I parked a few streets over and my mind starts to wander back to the question from the beginning of the night: “Now why would he do that?”. And I have answers ready to go even if they’re lies, but whats the real one?

Its this: In my mind I’m doing a public service. really, think about it most people go they’re entire lives absolutely complacent in their place in this tiny blue orb. complacency is boring, you have to be shaken up, gotta change your perception of how things work every once in awhile. The system is flawed because I’m about to get away with all your stuff. You don’t like it, why don’t you try to change it so guys like me cant even function, world peace and all that. get on it.

or maybe I’m just a sociopath…I dunno.

[Authors Note: I though I would start simple with a simple archetype and try to get in their head a little bit. Also this sort of comes from a joke I used to tell people of what I was gonna after I graduated school (although other than going to college me and this guy got nothing in common.]

Category: 2011, Drama