Pickpocket

Pickpocket

A garlicky stench of sweat filled the platform as I pinched my nose, trying to prevent the stench from entering my nose. Shafts of bronze light shone as commuters, workers and students mingled around. Finally, the crackles and the squeaks of brakes of the metal wheel screeched to a halt. I elbowed my way through the crowd of passengers.

With much effort, I managed to board the sardine packed and stuffy vehicle. Soon, the bus door shut close and moves on. I could hardly move an inch. My eyes rested on a girl, searching her pockets frantically with an air of despair. Soon, tears trickled down her rosy cheeks.

“Why did she cry so suddenly? Has anything happened to her?” I muttered under my breath. I approached her and asked her what had happened. “My……my wallet……is lost,” she sobbed.

“Had you dropped it anywhere?” I inquired. “I don’t know,” she answered. I scanned around the bus and my gaze fell on a man –he was fidgeting continuously, waiting impatiently at the door of the bus. “Could he have taken the girl’s wallet,” I wondered.

I mustered up my courage and approached him. “Sir, had you taken anything?” I asked. “It’s none of your business!” he shouted. All eyes were on us, interested in the commotion. “How do you explain this?” I said, pointing at the wallet in his hands. “This is mine!” he bellowed.
Losing his patience, he delivered a well-aimed punch at me. “Ouch……” I doubled up in pain. Taking advantage of my temporary disadvantage, he rained blows after blows at me. I could not take them so I collapsed onto the floor.

Suddenly, the door flung open, the man took to his heels. “Chase him……He is a……a pickpocket,” I uttered, grimacing in pain. Almost instantly, dozens of people jumped out from their seats and ran at breakneck speed. “Stopp…” one of them shouted. Their legs felt like lead and their chest heaved. Their lungs felt like burning as though pleading with them to stop but all of them were all unrelenting. Arms outstretched, they tried to catch hold of the pickpocket. However, he seemed so near and yet was frustrating out of reach each time they edged closer. The pickpocket in the chase with the rest was panting hard as well.

Suddenly, a stone was flung from nowhere. It ricocheted off the man’s back and fell with a heavy thud. A few muscular men rushed forward and pinned him down while another whipped out his hand phone and dialed in triple nines.

Within minutes, sirens of police cars rent the silent afternoon. The wallet was returned to the girl and the man was arrested. “Thank you so much. Thank you, “the girl thanked me profusely. She reached out for her wallet and took a fifty dollars note from there. What a rich girl she was to have so many fifty dollars notes in her wallet. However, I declined the reward politely. “Please, take it. You are such a brave boy to have confronted the man,” she said. I still did not accept it.

“All right then, I will tell my father to buy you a box of chocolates. Would that be all right?” she asked. I nodded with a grin.

12 September 2008