STRANGEST RIDE
HOME EVER!
Episode 3
(continued from Monday 14th and Wednesday 16th may 2012
blogpost @ alexzandasopi.blogspot.com)
 |
Still on the strangest ride home ever!
picture courtesy: Google search |
For the fact that this dance of panic did get on my
nerve, I must dare an attempt to create a picturesque view of it. At any other time, it would have qualified as
a delicately crafted choreography of high quality. Alas, at this moment of its performance, panic
was the author of this dance.
At unism, the dance starts off with a clap and
exclamation followed by an up and down movement of the body with the feet
rooted at a spot. The clap could be
quiet or loud depending on the performer.
The up, down movement of the body would then be made to accommodate
a swinging of the same body from one side to the other with outstretched arms,
palms facing skyward. The arm could then
be made to lift itself onto the head of the performer as if it was meant to
discharge a load onto the head. In a few
seconds, the rooted feet, as if in rhythm to a drumbeat, would be thumped one
after the other.
This was the dance that marked the “Agbo” hawkers
movement back to her wares after her several runs to one end of the loitering
passengers and back to her wares rummaging.
As a form of summary, picture a dance performed by someone in desperate need
to go to the rest room without any hope in the person occupying the said room
getting out any sooner, and that desperate individual is looking up to God for
a way out! Now that is the dance!
There were certain assumptions of situations like this
that did not agree with the scenario. One, usually, these female hawkers don’t put
their money where their wares is. But
this owner of the stolen purse claimed to have put her purse in a small plastic
bucket with a cover alongside sachets of gin.
They, and you can confirm this anytime you want, usually tuck their
money into the waist band of their skirts, trousers or whatever it is they were
these days. And believe me when I say, I
confronted her and any other person listening to me with this detail. But she
bluntly responded that the purse was among her wares neither could it have been
stolen at the bus-stop she boarded at.
Following this same line of thought was the belief by one
of the construction workers that he thought to have heard something drop on the
floor of the bus at the point of passengers disembarking from the bus. This only fuels the theory that the purse could
have been picked by any of the two ladies that had left the scene with a bike.
I vehemently overruled this theory because the lady in
front, the minor role lady, would not have had any clue about a purse on the
floor along my row. And the “suya” lady,
whether anyone believes it or not, really, really and I repeat, really had “suya”
on her mind. I felt it when she was talking about it and even when she was
demanding for her money from the driver.
Now the rest of the chain of suspicion, first of which was
the three constructions workers seated at the back.
These were the first group of persons to be suspected by
the hawker. But the irony of the
accusation is that the “staff” that was the first to hear this accusation, been
the only person the hawker was bold enough to tell, quickly defended them
stating categorically that they didn’t look like, in his own words, “touts.”
I must not at the moment not fail to enlighten the irony
in this defense. The very person that
engaged the “staff” in the no-blow-thrown-brawl was one of these guys. A case of an enemy coming to the defense of
his enemy!
Even without the action of these guys ready to discharge
the content of their bags to prove their innocence, I had my defense for
them. The passenger list did place the
other hawker on the same roll with three of these guys, and so, I deducted,
this I also made public that any foul play by any of these guys would have been
noticed by the hawker with the baby. As
such, with no accusation coming from the nursing mother/hawker, against these
guys, attention shifted away from them. As
a matter of fact, this mother/hawker kept insisting that it could have been any
of “suya” lady or her companion.
Everyone was so serious to give a theory about how the
purse got stolen, lost or missing that one person just had to ask, in Yoruba language,
“does the purse not contain a phone?!”
Ah ha! A phone! “What is the
number,” the hawker was asked, and she replied, “I DON’T KNOW,” still very much
engaged in her dance!
At this point, none of us, Sherlock Holmes of the moment,
would have wanted to touch this case even with a “NEPA” pole!
But believe me when I say, this story is on the home
stretch. Just stick around.
See you on Monday 21st
May 2012 right here at alexzandasopi.blogspot.com
I would also like to know what you think. Please share by giving your comments or
sending a mail:
or
HAVE A BEAUTIFUL WEEKEND!
Copyright 2012
Story by Alex
No comments:
Post a Comment