It was eleven forty-five and Robert (You-Can-Call-Me-Rob) Thornton’s vision was clouding. He was getting tired.
	“I should be getting to bed,” said Rob.
	So, Rob paused the song playing on Winamp (which was currently “Suedehead” by Morrissey), and went to power down his computer but stopped halfway through the process.
	“Why should I shut this down? I mean, it won’t hurt anything. I think I will leave it on for the night.”
	The machine Rob was about to shut down was his twenty-three hundred dollar computer. He had his computer custom-built with the best parts money could buy. To accommodate his high-tech computer, Rob bought a flat screen, nineteen inch plasma monitor and 5.1 surround sound speakers. Those speakers were the loudest things Rob had ever heard. His mother often complained that he would shake the nails out of the drywall if he turned them up higher.
	Rob closed his door but not all the way. He left it just a crack open in case he had to dash out of the room during the night in the unlikely event of a fire. Plus, he did not want to bother his parents with the light from the television, as their bedroom was right next door to his.
	Rob climbed into his bed and pulled the covers up to his head. He liked to sleep with his window open, despite the cold winter air. He just liked the fresh ocean breeze which often billowed through his window sill.
	He grabbed to his left for the television remote control, but knocked over a wooden Buddha figurine during his attempt. It hit the ground with a solid, ‘thud’.
	“Lovely,” said Rob.
	He reached for the wooden Buddha on the ground but could not find it.
	“It must have fallen under my bed. Beautiful.”
	So he got up and reached under the bed for the Buddha. His father had gotten him the figurine at the Bahamas. It was a solid wood carving of Buddha shaped in a spherical ball.
	He finally grasped the Buddha and retuned it to its place on the bed stand.
	Rob grabbed the remote from its basket and turned on the television. He always watched television before he turned in for the night. He watched the tail-end of “Three’s Company” and then decided that he needed to go to sleep.
	Rob turned off the television and almost instantly fell asleep.
	Rob awoke later in the night to the sound of a lock being picked.
	“’urry up, stupid,” said a whispered voice with a British accent.
	“I em, I em,” said another whispered British voice.
	“What is this?” whispered Rob.
	Rob heard a ‘click’ and then heard a door slowly open. Rob realized what door this must have been: the back door, out the window to his right and up a bit.
	“This must be a dream,” whispered Rob.
	Rob slowly sat up and slapped himself in the face quite hard with his left hand. The only thing this brought Rob was a hand-shaped welt on his left cheek. He was hoping slapping himself would bring consciousness, but this was not the case.
	“Ow,” Rob said.
	Rob began to become scared. His breathing became fast and shaky.
	“A’right, we’re in.” said the voice that was picking the lock.
	“Ya don’t think they’re awake, da ya?”
	“Not a’tall. They ar’ awl asleep.”
	“Okay, good. An’ why ar’ we ‘ere again?”
	“Don’t ya listen to anythin’? We’re ‘ere to get the valuables from the ol’ man’s safe.”
	“Ah, right.”
	Rob’s father had a safe hidden in their cellar which housed family valuables which were passed down from each generation. The items in the safe were worth large sums of money.
	Rob decided he had to stop them. He thought up a plan very quickly, because the men were not going to dawdle in getting into the safe.
	Rob got an idea. He ever so slowly slipped out of the covers as the men we right outside his doorway. He grabbed hold of the wooden Buddha in his left hand. Then, he cautiously crept toward his computer. He moved the mouse to wake the computer up out of its sleep. The clock in the lower left hand corner of the monitor said ‘4:04 AM’.
	“Did you ‘ear somthin’?”
	Rob held his breath.
“No, didn’t hear a thing.”
	“It must be me nerves actin’ up.”
	Rob exhaled slowly.
	Rob brought up the Winamp application and pressed the ‘Next’ button. Queen’s “Hammer to Fall” was scheduled to play next. 
	Rob turned his speakers up to the max. Then he pressed the ‘Play’ button.
	The beginning guitar sequence played and Rob could have sworn he heard a man scream. Buddha in hand, Rob stepped to the right of the doorway. One of the men stepped into the room and Rob clocked him square in the forehead with the Buddha just as Freddie Mercury was singing: 

“Here we stand
 And here we fall,
 History won’t care at all.”
	
The man fell to the floor.	
“Bloody he-“ was all Rob could make out of what the other man screamed.
	The man drew a gun and staring firing blindly into the room. Rob dove to his right to take cover behind his wall. He then scrambled to the opposite side of the room.
	The firing ceased as the man switched on the light. He looked around the corner of the doorway and Rob through the Buddha at him, missing completely.
	Rob’s father looked out of his bedroom and saw the man. He screamed something which was inaudible to Rob because of the music.
	The man dashed in the room, grabbed Rob, and pointed the gun at his head. Rob was now the man’s hostage.
	The man pushed Rob into the doorway. Apparently, Rob’s father had gotten his own gun and had it drawn at the man. 

And so the conversation turned
Until the sun went down
And many fantasies were learned
On that day

	The man screamed into Rob’s ear to turn off the music. Rob had no choice but to comply.
	“Ya shoot me an’ I will shoot yer son.”
	“Please, don’t! Let him go!”
	“Not unless ya put down ya gun.”
	“I can’t do that!”
	“Then ya won’t get ya son.”
	Rob could hear his mother screaming.
	“Shut ‘er up!” yelled the man.
	“Be quiet, honey. Everything’s going to be alright. He won’t do anything to Rob.”
	“You willing to bet on that, mate?”
	Rob’s mother screamed again.
	“Shut up, you git!”
	“Please let my son go!”
	“I tol’ ya, I’m not gonna let ‘im go until you put yer gu-“
	A blast from behind. Rob screamed out of surprise. So did his father, only his father accidentally squeezed the trigger, letting off a round from his pistol.
	The man and Rob both fell to the ground. The man was shot by a police officer who arrived at the house because neighbors heard gunshots. An officer fired through the window at the man. The bullet landed in the man’s head, instantly killing him. Rob died because his father accidentally let off a shot when the police officer fired. The bullet went into Rob’s head, killing him instantly.