50/100 Words
I See You
Thrifty Words 100 #66: Stalking & Fifty Words Challenge #87: Stalking
I’ve had stalkers. Have you?
I see a lot of people joking about stalking others or having been stalked. I get it. I’ve made the jokes, too.
In reality, being a victim of a stalker is terrifying. Especially when you consider 76% of women murdered by an intimate partner were stalked first, while 85% of women who survived murder attempts were stalked.
And yet, the jokes persist. My jokes persist.
What do a stalker and a Pokemon nerd have in common? They both hide out in bushes trying to get a Pikachu.
I’ve taken out a few restraining orders in my time. Not that they actually protect anyone. But they do, sometimes, give us some recourse when the person comes around again.
I was able to get one man arrested after taking out a restraining order on him. He had been stalking me for a while. He would make threatening phone calls and come over to my house and badger me to let him in. One time, he called me and threatened not only me but my mother, as well. I called the cops immediately. They were already in the area when he showed up at my house.
He continued to stalk me after he got out of jail. Continued to badger and harass me even after I moved halfway across the country.
Another man broke into my home while I was sleeping. I never did wake up and only found out because of the mess he left in the kitchen. I was more terrified that I didn’t wake up than that he was in my house. Trauma responses are weird like that.
Another time, the police came knocking on my door. They gave me a note with a phone number to call right away. The number turned out to be that of a mental hospital. The person to whom I spoke told me they were obligated by law to inform me of a situation. A guy I had (very briefly) dated had been hospitalized. He was being released. Apparently, he had been hearing Satan whispering in his ears and Satan had my voice. He had made several statements about killing me. He had a plan. He had the means.
And he was being released!
I don’t think anything came of that threat, because I’m still alive. I have no idea what happened to that guy or whether he stopped hearing Satan. I did spend a few months looking over my shoulder, though.
Another stalker, a guy I had broken up with, would harass me through phone calls mostly. One day he came by my apartment and made a lot of threats. The neighbors called the cops and he was taken to jail. He called me from jail demanding to know why I had him arrested. I think he genuinely had no clue what he was doing or how terrifying it was. Ultimately, he ended up killing himself.
So, yeah. Stalking is serious business.
And yet, we joke.
What is a stalker's favorite part of the hospital?
The I. C. U.
Have you ever been stalked? Have you ever stalked anyone? Have you ever told jokes about stalking or being stalked? I want to know! Your challenge is to let me know in exactly 100 or exactly 50 words.
Stalking: 50 or 100 words. Choose one!
Please choose either the fifty-word or 100-word challenge, not both. See the guidelines for your chosen challenge below.
100 Words Guidelines
50 Words Guidelines
Remember, in order to be considered for the challenge, you need to write exactly 100 or 50 words (contractions such as ‘you’ll’ and ‘y’all’ count as one, as do articles ‘a’ and ‘the’ and all 23 auxiliary verbs ‘am’ ‘is’ ‘are’ etc. Hyphenated words count as one word.) The editors reserve the right to add or remove words to ensure the exact word count. Keep an eye on your tags as laid out in the submission guidelines above.
Please use the kicker 100 WORDS or 50 WORDS and Thrifty Words 100 Challenge #66: Stalking or Fifty Word Challenge #87: Stalking as your subtitle and submit by 9 pm EST on Friday 29th April.
Two of your five tags should be #The Bad Influence and #Thrifty Words. All stories submitted by the deadline will be released the next day in the weekly roundup. (If you miss the deadline, you may get published but you won’t get into the roundup).
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