When a thief pried his way into our home with the intent to pillage and inflict harm, I didn’t flinch. Instead, I said, follow me, and we walked out the back door, avoiding the neighbor’s peering eyes and resulting gossip, then made our way a half-dozen blocks to the corner mini-mart. With exception of our awkward dance projected on a grainy, closed-circuit security monitor, we moved undetected past the Slushie machine and the overcooked roller food, until we could spot bounties of promise: A deck of playing cards. Lock de-icer and Duralogs. Sudoku and disposable razors. Beef jerky and more beef jerky. The stuff of impulse and biding one’s time, of uncommon necessity and banal utility in the dark hours damn near close to this one. How it all found its way into four prized aisles of a near-vacant mini-mart awash in fluorescent lighting remains a distant supply chain secret, as perplexing as the novice cat burglar who, without his stocking cap and nude pantyhose screening his face, is just another domesticated animal looking to make it through the day.

Thad DeVassie has authored This Side of Utopia (forthcoming; Cervena Barva) and work has appeared in Poetry East, NYQ, West Branch, NANO Fiction, and [PANK], among others. He runs a brand messaging studio in Ohio.

Photo by CÔPAL on Unsplash

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