alexzanda's o.p.i.



copyright 2012

STRANGEST RIDE HOME EVER!

Episode 4

(A continuation from 14^th, 16^th and 18^th of May 2012 blogpost @ alexzandasopi.blogspot.com)

 But there was a breakthrough, her partner, the one she “lapped” in the bus, remembered the number!

 Eager to get to the end of this, just to prove that the purse could not possibly be among the remaining passengers loitering, one male passenger volunteered his phone and called the number. 

 BEHOLD, SOMEONE THOUGHT HE HEARD A PHONE RING! And there were random movements, everyone strategically repositioning!

But it was just one person that had claimed to have heard a phone ring.  So, they tried it again.  No one heard any phone ringing.  Someone declared that it must have been switched off. 

While this drama was on, something else was going on outside the circle of eager Sherlock Holmes.  One of the construction workers headed towards the roadside drainage and “staff” followed him.  Or so I thought.   

 Curiosity pushed me towards this line of action. 

“What was going on here,” I questioned my reasoning.

“Staff” jumped into the drainage, kicking aside the collection of waste on the floor.

 And I asked, “na here the phone take ring?”

 Silence greeted my query as busy Sherlock Holmes continued with their search. 

 I had thought that the construction worker was making an attempt at repositioning himself to hide his guilt and “staff” was moving in to uncover his ploy.  But observing for a little time, I then concluded that maybe someone had gone to the drainage to dump the phone there at the moment the phone was to be called. 

 In all these emerging theories, I was wrong.  For immediately “staff, ” in teamwork with the misjudged construction worker, did not see what he was looking for, climbed out of the drainage and started shouting in Yoruba.

 “The person that went to urinate, where is the wet patch of urine you left on the floor?!”

 IT WAS COLD! IT WAS CALCULATED!

 “Staff” instantly went to the “Agbo” hawker and categorically put it to her shouting, still in Yoruba, that if she was to find her purse, she must conduct a thorough search of the person that went to piss.

 THE ACCUSATION WAS NOW POINTED AT THE NURSING MOTHER/HAWKER!

She it was who had claimed to want to urinate at the time of a second attempt at calling the phone inside that stolen purse.

Again and again “staff” shouted, “both of you are women.”

 “Go to a corner and strip her naked!”     

At this point, I was reluctant to join this train of accusers especially as the nursing mother/hawker was pointedly denying the accusation and willingly followed the “Agbo” hawker to a corner along the road. 

But something did not sit right with me too concerning the presently accused.  She kept accusing “suya” lady and minor-role lady. 

Just as I was trying to make sense of all this from “staff” and the construction worker, then came running back to the loitering passengers, was the “Agbo” hawker with her stolen pursed high above her head like a trophy!

 The mother/hawker was the thief!

 As if this was a drama with some sought of timing sequence, along came the conductor with a container of fuel.

 At the time the fuel was completely discharged into the bus, the thief, mother/hawker, was yet to come out of her corner of shame to join the other passengers.  

The conductor fully updated with what had happened led a charge on the wares of the mother/hawker taking a pack of cigarette.  This action was followed by “staff” and some other persons making an attempt at taking something from the wares.  I quickly stepped in and begged that she should not be plundered.

Also sensing that the thief could not be guaranteed immunity against the anger of the plundering passengers, I pushed as many as I could to board the bus so that we can go without her.   I reasoned that if we left without her, no one was going to beat her up.

For those of you who don’t know Lagos, a thief on the street, surrounded by a group of angry persons, is never granted safety.  I know this by experience having stood between a mob and its thief-of-a-target for lynching. 

I had to choose between two evil and I chose the lesser.  I could not afford to be a witness to a lynching.  The issue that she is a nursing mother, I guarantee you, would not even save her.  For the purse she had stolen, according to the “Agbo” hawker, contained all the money of the sales for the week and this was a Friday! 

And so we were relieving the Agatha Christie drama that just played out, everyone filling in little unnoticed details as the bus took us to our final bus-stop without the thief among us.  In the course of the talking, I tried to arrange everything that had happened in my head.

If the bus did not stop, the no-blow-thrown-brawl would not have occurred.  Without the brawl, “staff” would not have wanted to cool his fury with “Alomo” and the purse would not have been discovered stolen. 

 “Suya” lady and the minor-role lady played their part to fuel distraction from the real thief.  And even the baby with the mother/hawker was relevant in the scheme of things.  It was the cover needed for the thief.  While carrying the baby in front of her with her wrapper loose over her hand, she avoided attention from the three construction workers beside her to claim her underserved prize.

 My role?

 I was thinking it was about stopping the lynching but then I realize that this drama needed an “amebo!”  In other words, I am the tale bearer.

And you want to know why the “Agbo” hawker was this lucky?

Not to worry, I won’t ask you to wait another episode. 

While we recounted all that had happened, she revealed to us that there was a time she has boarded a bus and she picked from the floor of the bus a handkerchief tied into a ball containing N20,000 (Twenty thousand Naira)!

 She called out in the bus if anyone had dropped anything.  But no one answered.  It was only after a little while that it occurred to whoever had dropped the handkerchief that she had lost something, her money that was contributed to her through thrift collection, popularly referred to as “ajo.”

That day she received a prayer from the grateful owner which I believe was a catalyst from whoever had arranged for the casting of the roles of the passengers inside that bus that fateful day.  A necessary manipulation to warrant the outcome of the strangest ride home ever!


THE END!



STRANGEST RIDE HOME EVER!  Story by Alex