Years ago, on Christmas eve 2001, I was in tears: I couldn’t afford a gift for my 8 y.o. boy. That night, the doorbell rang, and there was a box wrapped in newspaper. It had a new Walkman inside. We had no idea who brought it, but I kept the paper as a memory.

15 years later, while moving, I found it again. I felt sick, an eerie chill ran through me when I read the news on it: it was about my neighborhood. The article, dated 1990, reported on a suspected man in his 40s who had been breaking into houses on our street and stealing from them. I had no idea about this, as I wasn’t living there back then.

Luckily, nothing bad happened. It could’ve been just a coincidence to wrap it in that news, but still, it’s a chilling one.