Lesson 1 – Introduction to Narative Point of View

The Burglar

1. The Neighbor

“It’s none of my business whatever goes on over there at the Perkin’s home. Never did care for them much, certainly not since they painted their house that dreadful yellow color—never could stand yellow—probably why I don’t eat bananas anymore. So I’m just sitting in my front room, drinking my morning coffee and watching all this activity across the road at number 202. I supposed they must be moving—they never said anything to me, but why would they? They don’t like me any more than I like them—which is not at all.

“Anyway, there was a big van backed up in their driveway—it looked like one of those you can rent from one of those car rental companies, except it didn’t have any name or logo on the sides—it was dirty white all over. As far as I could tell, there were three men with the van, all wearing matching jackets and caps like uniforms. Couldn’t get a good look at them really because they seemed to be always either in the house or in the van.

“Seemed to take them a while to get in the house. I thought maybe they didn’t have the right key or something and had to mess with the lock. Typical of the Perkins to give someone the wrong key—airheads, all of them. They finally got inside and started carrying stuff out—couldn’t see much of what they had because the van was in the way. And anyway, I wasn’t looking to pay attention to what all was going on over there at the Perkins’ place. Tried to ignore them as usual. I did notice a couple of TVs carried out, few pieces of furniture, what looked like a file cabinet, and a lot of black, plastic garbage bags with stuff in them. That’s all I saw. Probably a lot of other stuff stashed in the van, I don’t know—noticed later they were gone, not sure how long they were there—maybe an hour?

“So That’s about it, officer, that’s all I saw—you say you think they were burglars?”

2. The Victim

“Angela, it’s Paul, can you hear me? Good. Now listen, I’ve just gotten home, and it looks like we may’ve been robbed—yes, robbed, burgled. …. How do I know? Well, for one, the front door is busted open like someone took a crowbar to it; that was the first clue. …. Did I do what? …. Yes, of course, I went inside …. No, the burglars weren’t hiding in the house. I’m guessing they were long gone. …. They did take stuff; that’s what burglars do, for chrissake …. I know the TVs are gone, stereo, all the paintings in the living room; they must’ve been through all the drawers in the house. They were all open and the contents all over the floor—god knows what they took. There’s some furniture missing too, including the filing cabinet upstairs in the office. It’s gone. …. Why does that matter? You seriously don’t know? Because it had all the master tapes from that last recording session we did with Raelyn. …. Did they take what? …. Are you serious? You want to know if they took your Chanel makeup, that’s what you are worried about? At this point, I have no idea. …. No, I have not called the police yet. …. Because I wanted to call you first, that’s why. …. I don’t know now why I wanted to call you first. But now it seems like a bad idea. …. Yes, I’m about to call them. I’ll see you later. You might want to think about a hotel for tonight.”