The sound was so violent that every window in my house shook.
For one terrifying second, I thought an explosion had happened.
Then came the roar of hundreds of liters of water crashing into the ground.
My wife screamed from the kitchen.
“Daniel!”
I ran outside.
And stopped dead.
The enormous water tank beside our house was lying across the backyard.
The steel frame had collapsed.
Water was pouring across the grass, flooding the flower beds and sweeping away everything in its path.
But that wasn't what made my hands go cold.
The tank had landed directly on my old wooden chair.
The chair where I sat every afternoon.
The chair where I drank coffee, read the newspaper, and watched the sunset.
Twenty minutes earlier, I had been sitting there.
My coffee mug was still on the small table beside the wreckage.
Broken.
My gardening gloves were scattered beneath the tank.
My wife came running outside.
She stared at the destruction.
Then she looked at me.
“You were sitting there.”
“I know.”
“You were sitting there less than half an hour ago.”
I nodded.
Neither of us said what we were thinking.
If I had stayed outside, I would probably have been killed.
Then I noticed something.
The tank hadn't simply fallen.
One of the main supports had been damaged.
And the damage didn't look natural.
I walked closer.
“Don't touch it,” my wife warned.
I stopped.
There were fresh marks on the steel.
The bolts had been loosened.
One support looked as if someone had deliberately weakened it.
My stomach tightened.
I looked toward the fence separating our property from our neighbor's.
Marlene Bishop was standing there.
Watching.
She was holding a cup of tea.
And she wasn't surprised.
That was the first thing that frightened me.
She looked almost disappointed.
Then she said something I'll never forget.
“Well... at least nobody was sitting there.”
I stared at her.
“How did you know where I usually sit?”
Her expression changed.
“I didn't.”
“You just said nobody was sitting there.”
“I meant the chair.”
“No. You knew.”
She took a sip of tea.
“Daniel, you're being paranoid.”
Then she walked back toward her house.