I entered a True Story competeion on the BBC here in the UK. Don't think I'll win but I think some of you will be surprised by my story. To this day I've not found out what happened to my neighbours or their friends other than whats in the story.
Hope you find it intersting. Here's the link to the full story (1500 words)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mystory/stories/tragedy/150177/
This is the synopsis
My story recollects, from my home in Coventry, the run up to Gulf war II and my unusual part in UK homeland security.
Drawn into observing the mannerisms of my neighbours, my major conflict is that of the mind, my disbelief fencing with rationality. Stubbornly I keep finding my intuition arm wrestles with reality. There is no clear evidence only supposition on my part.
The neighbour’s actions in plain view are everyday and innocent but from the periphery seemingly shaded. Something wasn’t quite right but had I the right to act or indeed was it right to act.
As a rapid sequence of events unfolds we get to see pieces of a picture lain down before us, becoming a tangible thing of predictability. We can see the outcome but if those events are subtle and slight of detail they hold no meaning making the picture less defined if at all. This leaves me with a conundrum. These events are factual but so innocuous I question myself to the validity of my reasoning. The facts are there but then again they’re not, much like a giant jigsaw puzzle without its box. To report this conundrum I am forced, reluctantly, to grasp my intuition and take a leap of faith.
i read your story this afternoon, on my lunchbreak.
i found it both interesting, and somewhat frightening. i liked the way you worded things, and kept it interesting.
what i find frightening, is that this is a true account(i think you said that?) while it may well have been terrorists in this case, things like this encourage people to "snoop" on their neighbors and friends, then turn them in to the authorities, if anything at all seems even remotely "not normal" to them.
i'll use myself for an example. i work 2 jobs(including running my shop). i fly remote control models. i shoot archery. i'm in and out all hours of the night. i am virtually unpredictable as to when i will or will not be home.
so lets take things in order.
remote control model flying. for the most part, i only fly my fixed wing models at AMA sanctioned clubs, and fields. BUT...i fly my helicopters where i feel like it.
there is a bank right out in back of my shop. i practice hovering my heli there, in different situations. i practice hover taxing with it. i run my remote control trucks in their parking lot. this all takes place when they're closed.
i do these same things at home, in my driveway, and in the street in front of my home. when i work on anything in my basement, or garage, lights are on late, stereo going(not too loud though).
to someone looking for that "excitement" in their middle aged life, virtually everything i just mentioned about my r/c flying can be interpreted as being "suspicious".
when i practice my archery, i set up targets on the back wall of my garage. it makes for a nice safe backstop. from my front yard to that wall is 20 yards. 30 yards on the sidewalk across the street, and 40 yards partly in my neighbors yard.
i fletch my own arrows. i often change the tips. i try different sights. as we all know, a bow is a weapon. they're not often used as such(although about 2 years ago, a guy 4 blocks from my home shot 3 of his neighbors horses..killed em all), but none the less, they ARE weapons. they can be somewhat stealthy way to injure, or kill people.
to someone looking for that "excitement" in their middle aged life, virtually everything i just mentioned about my archery, can appear "suspicious".
with my shop, i often come home very late. once in awhile, i come home at normal times. more often than not, i run in fairly hurriedly, and run back out, as i head to home depot to pick up things for the work i need to do at my night job.
depending on what i have to do there, i will be home anywhere from 10pm go 1am. sometimes a few of us from that store go to one of the bars on south street.
so.......if i had a nosy neighbor, that for whatever reason decided my "activities" were suspicious, i could end up having to account to the authorities as to why i fly r/c, why i shoot archery, why i fletch my own arrows, rather than buy them ready made, account for why i'm in and out all hours of the night, etc.
and now, i bet the very next response will say somewhere in it "well, if you're not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to worry about."
really? what if said authorities damage my $1400 helicopter? what if they damage or destroy my $1800 worth of bows, and sights? or my several hundred dollars worth of arrows, and equipment?
what if they suddenly decide that i shouldn't be shooting into my garage, or running my r/c cars out front? or hovering my helis in my driveway?
if they were to come to question me here on my property, now the rest of the neighborhood will wonder what i did. should they decide i need to go to the station for questioning, then what? who's going to go to my night job? who's going to open my shop? who's going to replace the lost money while i'm not open?
then top off that on another forum(F/W), there was a thread about the UK having some sort of contest, giving everyone access to the 4 million + cameras over there.......why? to turn in criminals. this would bring us back to the neighbor spying on the neighbor problem.
stuff like this is not good. not good at all. it is absolutely frightening. if i were to be questioned for any of my "suspicious" activities, i can assure you that i would find out who was responsible, and there would be "words". you have any problems, or issues with me, you take them up with me.
in the case of your neighbors, everything sounded suspicious......so you were most probably right.........thankfully.
i'm not meaning to be demeaning towards you, just giving you another perspective.
eagl...what you mentioned, about wishing someone would've done this when your place got broken into? that sir is a completely different situation.
allmost forgot....good luck in the contest.
