Saturday, March 08, 2008

A Short Story

She: "There was a Do Not Cross police tape around the compound of the house in the street thats just around the corner. Lets check crimereports.com" 

He was getting worried as he surfaced from the newspaper that he was reading. 
He:"Nothing in the news"
She: "Come and look at this. It says forcible sexual assault".
He doubled over and peered into the laptop.
He: "You should keep the security alarm ON all day, when you are at home."
She agreed.
She: There is no mention of it any news though. Something is funny.
She had a comforting thought, "maybe it was not an intruder. Could be abuse by somebody living in the same house".

6 comments:

Mad Max said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Mad Max said...

omen, what is comforting is that there is no serial rapist running around in the neighborhood. On the other hand she might be wary as what happened in the other house could happen to her. However, she can take comfort from the fact that being aware of such a possibility by itself will make her aware of her surrounding. Most times such event occur because the victim does not expect to be in such a situation. If the awareness is heightened, risks are reduced.

Hence it is comforting from both angles. But the ethical question to ask is, should one take comfort out of grief for the other? Is life always a zero-sum game? Some may argue for it and some against.

Suresh Sankaralingam said...

I am the kind who doesnt derive a lot of comfort if something happens in our neighbourhood... A while back, someone vandalised our cable wiring outside the house and looted dish network equipments (common property)... Even now, whenever I see loss of signal, I rush to see the cable box outside... If I hear a car sound around 10 or 11 in the night, I do peek out...;)... Awareness is good. But, it also triggers a sense of perpetual insecurity...

Mad Max said...

@ Mindframes: That is a very interesting point. "...awareness is good but it triggers a sense of perpetual insecurity...". I like that. In most situations we always assume that more information is better. But ithis is a specific example of a case where less information is better. Very interesting indeed.

sdpal said...

"She had a comforting thought" - is that the story's point ? Abused by the insider in the house is normalcy.. ?

Manohar said...

@sdpal: may not be normalcy... but that is the story's point :)