Not in my house

I've been burgled before. It’s never nice to come home to a ransacked house. Today it looked as if someone had come along, picked up my house and shaken it, like they were they trying to make some sort of cocktail. The contents of drawers were strewn throughout the house, up stairs and across beds – a clothing ejaculation.

I staggered from room to room, trying hard to take it all in when I heard a noise coming from the bathroom.

I looked about – almost as if I wished there to be a gun on which my hand could fall, just as Bruce Willis' character in Pulp Fiction when he discovers John Travolta's hit man taking a shit in his toilet – but my eyes didn’t seem to focus on anything but the mess.

Anger welled inside of me; this was my chance to exact revenge. I felt like a fucking rabbit caught in headlights. I'd always assumed I know what to do in these situations; I'd spent time discussing it with friends who'd been the target of thieves in the past:

"Yeah, I'd fucking kill 'em; if I found one in my house, he'd better pray someone's called the fucking police, cos when I get my hands on him..."

Lots of sentences like that. I'd been lying, not only to my friends but to myself. I was not into confrontation. Not as much as I'd thought I would be.

This time, a different set of thoughts went through my head:

What if he's got a gun?
What if he's bigger than me?
What if the police say I've used more than reasonable force?
What if...

It was just a bunch of ifs. I couldn't stand around waiting to see if I'd get whacked first. I had to be in charge of the situation, otherwise I might find that some ambulance driver – say, one who's been awake for days thanks to the problem of a lack of staff – falls asleep at the wheel of his vehicle just at the point he drives onto a bridge.

I decided to take charge, to turn this set of undefined circumstances into a positive outcome and ensure that things turned out the way any normal people would expect them to conclude. So, I did what that 'normal' person would do:

I crept to the under-stairs cupboard, retrieved the baseball bat and slinked back to the kitchen. I grabbed a large knife (more for effect than for use: I don’t like blood) just in case.

Then, the door to the bathroom opened.

I didn't wait around for explanations. I just flew at the intruder, my arms flailing. I didn't take any time to look at his face, his build, whether he had a weapon or was empty-handed. I just did what I had to do. To protect myself, my property. Protect what I'd spent years building up.

Only when the body stopped moving and I had to fight for breath did I finally cease. Only when the police came did I put down the bat, drop the knife on the blood-stained floor. Only then did I become restrained.

The masked body of my opponent – for that is how I viewed them in my head – lay on the floor, not even a twitch of movement. A policeman bent forward, hand poised to pull off the mask. A thought ran through my head: I would've got away for it if it hadn’t been for those pesky kids, or in this case pesky baseball bat. I smiled.

That soon dropped from my face, joining the bat and my jaw on the floor.

I hadn't expected it to be my son.