
The break-in
9 January, 2025
I was terrified, heart pounding, bones frozen, as my front door creaked open, and the intruder’s face came into view. “You can’t come in! Go away! Help!” I shouted, each word so hard to squeeze through my tight throat that it came out as a slow ghostly drawl: “Go-awaaaay! Heeeelp!” I may have been shouting in my dream, but it was a woeful, high-pitched, strangled wail that woke me up. I lay quite still. Partly