texts > Thief in the Night
(Goele De Bruyn)
The burglar watched the darkened windows
from the hedge alongside the driveway, checking to make sure
that there was no one at home. Not a single light was on inside
the house. There wasn't a peep to be heard. The burglar crouched
down amid the thick leaves and waited, slowly working up his
confidence to go further. A neighbour passed by walking their
dog. He waited. Once they were far off in the distance, the
thief returned his eyes to the empty house.
Andy sat way up in the branches of a back yard pine tree,
watching the burglar in the bushes. He was curious to see
how far the thief would go. Would he actually attempt to break
into the house or would he loss his conviction and retreat?
Andy's questions were soon answered when the burglar stood
up from the row of hedges and walked around to the patio behind
the house.
After fiddling with the lock, the masked man pried open a
thin metal door, doing so with such precision that even Andy
had hardly heard the slightest sound. Then he disappeared
into the house via the forced patio door, vanishing from Andy's
view.
"Oh what fun," thought Andy. Even though he was
against stealing things himself, sometimes it was fun to observe
others doing so. He swept across the back yard anxiously and
followed the thief into the dark, cavernous shadows of the
house's rear utility room.
By the time that Andy was inside, the burglar had turned on
an electric torch and was using it to inspect the items in
the utility room. The broad, circular beam spread over the
room's contents, illuminating the dark corners with waves
of rolling white light. Because there wasn't much to see in
the utility room besides old jars of canned fruit and vegetables,
the burglar moved into the next room, a much larger space,
which appeared to be a family den.
The electric torch distributed its light like a thin fog into
the unlit chamber, revealing a typical assortment of chairs,
tables, shelves and pictures. Andy sensed that the burglar
was pleased with this room, for he immediately began to search
about the various nooks with an air of eagerness. The flashlight
cut about through the dark room, sometimes shrinking in on
small, detailed things, sometimes swelling up to expose half
the room.
Andy remained close against the ceiling as the thief went
over to an end table and gently opened its drawer. He reached
in and pulled out something very minute. He then took his
little treasure over to a breakfast table and sat down, setting
the electric torch down in front of him so he could see the
item in its slanted illumination. The object, as it turned
out, was a miniature clamshell, having a pearly colour with
the faintest tint of violet streaking across its back. The
thief regarded the shell for some time, surprising Andy by
taking his time, without any sense of haste.
After patiently examining the shell in the light of the electric
torch, the burglar went over to a bookshelf and withdrew a
tiny box of buttons. Andy sat back in the deep shadows of
the den, watching the thief go on to remove several items
from their resting-place and then spread them out within the
light on a table. With each item the burglar repeated the
slow, careful inspection of the chosen article. The things
he selected from the den ranged from a random sock, to an
antique watch, to a pair of scissors.
Andy could find no logic to the burglar's actions. He didn't
seem to be the least bit concerned with hurrying like most
in-breakers would. Rather than picking out valuable things
and quickly departing before the owners either awoke or came
home, this thief took his time, relaxed and comfortable in
his situation, obsessing over the most irrelevant items.
Then, much to Andy's bewilderment, the burglar started to
put each of the items back where he found them! This was amazing.
Andy couldn't figure out what was going on. He floated in
the dark room, baffled by the supposed criminal's actions.
Once all of the things were neatly back in their original
place, the burglar started tiptoeing towards the utility room
door. He was apparently going to leave without taking a single
thing. Bursting with curiosity, Andy moved in close behind
the strange, felonious figure and opened his mouth to speak.
"What are you doing?" he asked in a whispered voice.
The burglar turned around abruptly and gasped into the empty
air behind him.
"Who's there? Where are you?"
"Don't you think you should be answering the same questions?"
replied Andy.
The burglar peered forward, shining his torch at an empty
armchair.
"I demand to know who you are!" he repeated.
"I'm just a little bird, who's watching you," said
Andy. "Why did you put those things back? I thought you
were going to steal them."
The thief lowered the flashlight and sighed.
"You thought that I was going to steal something from
here?" he asked.
"Yes. I saw you break in."
"Well," continued the burglar, "as it turns
out, this is my house. I live here. These are my memories,
things I have coveted from over the years."
Andy scrunched his brow.
"This is your house? Then why were you lurking about
in the bushes like a thief and why are you wearing a mask?"
"Because, you see, there are some things inside the self,
I mean, things locked away, in special drawers and cabinets
of the mind, that we have a hard time approaching… This
is the only way that I can confront certain things…
To disguise myself."
"But why?"
"Because these things are not always easy to recollect.
That's why I wear a mask when I come in here like this, late
at night, so that no one else shall recognise me, so that
I shall not recognise myself."
"I still don't understand?"
"You see…it's like what I hear echoing inside that
little seashell. When I put it to my ear it tells me the truth,
the sort of truth one can only hear when alone at night."
"So in effect," said Andy, "you're braking
into yourself?"
"Yes… I'm burgling my own self-reliance. Trespassing
over the barriers and blockades we build up around ourselves
in an attempt to present the ideal self. But what lies beyond
those boundaries? Who am I inside that shut-up place? During
the day I am one person, but around my night trees I am another.
Here in this silent den, when the lights are out, the whole
world is sleeping and I am unleashed. Only then can I be focused.
Only then can I take myself apart piece by piece and not be
afraid of what I find holding me together..."
Alice Evermore 2002
Goele De Bruyn
Solo exhition Netwerk Galerij.
16/11/02 > 21/12/02