So your boy got jumped:
Friday afternoon. I “trudge” to the mall as usual. Twenty-five-minute walk (thirty without Chuck Taylor). I need internet access to connect with my mother figure, who is on the other side of the country. There is a matter I have been holding off for a loose week and need to pick up soonest.
Internet access is hard to come by without an income, and the largess people had expressed on me had thoroughly depleted, understandably so. So as far as options go, I should be moonwalking to the mall for free internet access.
So I approach the rear entrance gate. It appears the security guys had knocked off. It is a little after six and the sun is almost “fully” retired. The large gate is closed for the cars, but the walkway gate is “wider” than our inequality gap. It is on the other side of the street. So I cross over with coolness akin to the sea-born breeze that kissed the sweat at the chest of King Leonidas.
No sooner than I approach the entrance than I was intercepted by two hoodlums. I had them on my peripheral, but the last thing I am thinking is, “these are jump men”. Well, turns out, these are “jumped men.”
The SONY headphones on my ears had somewhat impeded my alertness. They caught me unawares. I take them off and hang them on my neck. I return the rude gaze “given” by the one guy while the other comes about my rear. We square off. Before long, I have two sets of hands on me, so my attention is divided. We start jostling, and then I hear a distinctive sound of a ripple click. It is the weapon of choice, copiously lauded by former high-School peers, who are either down in “the den” or definitely pushing daisies: the steel-work highly recommended by unofficial surgeons; South African workmanship with the sole intention of getting things done at the first time of asking; Okapi!
‘Shit just got real, I think to myself. I immediately see the headlines the next day, “Another One!”… So I abate my struggle and give myself to their ill intent.
I take a straight hook to the middle of the face, followed by a false accusation; ‘Usishayelani’?!
I am on the receiving end of an ambush and my face just collided with a clenched fist, and I am accused of assault.
My Goodness!
My Sony headphones are taken off my neck similarly to when the anointing alleviates the burden. And then the most ominous and yet most “obvious” question oscillated my ossicles; ‘Ikuphi le phone’?! They authoritatively ask where the phone is, as though it belonged to them, and I had held on to it long enough.
The guy behind me goes through my pockets like my 5year old nephew when he does not believe that I do not have money. He yanks the phone from my left pocket with his thumb and index, a method used by grifters.
Now, I have been rejected before… I have been stood up. And, I have been jilted.
The amount of heartbreak when my phone was separated from me, amalgamates all of those instances and puts them to shame.
At this juncture, they have my most prized possessions, so they must be done with me, right?…
Well, WRONG! I am being dragged by my jersey by the one guy while the other bounces closely behind.
We are headed to the bushy area from where they emerged.
There is a graveyard on the other side separated by a railway. ‘I am about to get operated on, I think to myself. ‘I am about to reap the repercussions of my earlier resistance, which probably would have continued had I not heard the ominous sound of the infamous “Three Star.”
As I lament for putting up a resistance (albeit a tame one), I flashback to boasting about being immune to death. ‘If these idiots have their way, I lose all credibility, I think to myself.
“Wait!”… I interrupt… “Is it possible that they were sent by someone who lost a debate to me about mortality?”
Could it possibly be that I am being punked?
While I am entertaining less-than-likely scenarios in my head, my hands take on a life of their own.
They take the unilateral risk of smashing the hand firmly grasping my jersey, which could go all kinds of wrong, and in one swoop, I retain the credibility of my “boastings.”
I break off from them and scurry off a good two metres.
They contemplate chasing me but quickly lose their appetite.
I suppose the chase had no thrill.
