Double Addiction: Targeted

“Ping!” 

Rumors abounded about the middle-aged woman living alone in a small, diverse community. Being single and wealthy, she was invariably the target for pranksters and potential lawsuits. Some suspected she had an addiction, but no one ever saw her drinking, smoking or doing drugs. 

Betty was a tall, thin, dark-haired woman with a taste for immaculate, well-tailored clothing and expensive jewelry. She lived like a recluse. When family or friends visited, she was gracious and kind towards them. Children seemed to love her, but some worried that she enticed them. She lived a mysterious, kind of scary life, or so it seemed to some.

While there were questionable characters in her immediate vicinity, she never appeared to have contact with them. They hovered around her home like house flies looking for a place to land. At times, they would stand beside her house, getting out of the wind in order to smoke, drink or whatever, without being disturbed.

Every week, she would go shopping and on returning would pick up their empty bottles, cigarette packages, etc. A wild rose ran rampant in her front yard and numerous wild flowers, including dandelions, blossomed freely. Sometimes, she picked the blossoms.        

A closer look at Betty’s lifestyle, revealed a woman with a pen in her mouth and a glass of ice water in hand, carrying a small notebook in her pocket. Perhaps there was something mysterious about what Betty was doing, penning notes on whatever she saw or heard. Maybe that made the neighbors suspicious. 

At all hours of the day and night, Betty worked on her computer. Taking a break, she would step out into the yard, stand on her patio deck to stretch or check her car for vandalism, which ran rampant in the area.

Neighbors heard the gunshot fired at her, but she did not seem phased by it. Betty was simply an observer of humankind, a freelance writer who loved her work, particularly writing children’s literature. She was an academic, a born thinker, naturally in sync with children’s antics.

Maybe Betty was addicted to something. If so, what was it? She lived in a world of books and perhaps her addiction was to writing and research. She was definitely hooked on that. Maybe it signified a double addiction, or even a triple addiction to life.