Stories of the Everyday

There is nothing on TV that really interests me, but I leave it on anyway. I am sitting on the couch, reading a book, looking up only every now and then to see the images flicker across the screen. I hear the front gate click. Shortly thereafter, my housemate F walks in, arms stretched long by four heavy shopping bags. With an exhausted hello she proceeds straight to the kitchen to rid herself of the heavy load. “How was your day?” I shout across rooms. “Ok and yours?” she shouts back. Before I can reply, our conversation is interrupted by a noise in the back of the house. Something fell and landed with a heavy thud on the floor.

We are both alerted because we are the only people in the house – or so we think. I get up to check what’s going on, but before I reach the corridor, a figure comes sprinting past me. A teenager with a plastic bag in his hand. “Hey!” I shout, half confused, half angry. “What do you think you are you doing?” Before I fully grasp what is going on, the teenager has climbed over the wall of our property and is gone. F, who has joined me by now in the corridor, looks at me with a big question mark.

But there is no time to explain. My brain runs at full speed. The plastic bag, I think. Our stuff is in the bag. My body, frozen in shock a minute ago, springs into action. I run out onto the street to see if I can find him. I don’t have to go far. There he still is, walking leisurely down the road, pretending nothing has every happened, that he is just an ordinary resident on his way from A to B.

When he realises that I am coming after him, his eyes open wide. He is immobilised for a second, doesn’t quite trust his eyes. And then he starts to run. I am close on his heels, a mere 30 metres between us, but he is tall and his long legs carry him quickly down the sloping street, towards the intersection. The distance between us grows steadily. My lungs start hurting as I try to increase my pace. If I don’t catch up with him soon, he will be gone.

Just as I am about to give up, a man walks into view. He could be in his mid-40s and the way he is dressed – beige pants, black leather shoes, dark blue anorak – looks like he on his way home from work. “Catch him! Catch him!” I shout breathlessly, pointing towards the teenager who has just crossed the intersection and is now running up the hill on the other side.

The man looks up in astonishment, but it doesn’t take him long to make sense of the situation. He unzips his anorak, reaches with his right hand into his left inner pocket… and pulls out a small, silver revolver. He briefly waves it at me with a big smile, then takes up pursuit of the teenager.

But neither of us is a match for the young guy who, sensing the hot chase, quickly cuts into a small alleyway on the right, hoping he will lose us. Seconds later, the man has reached the entrance of the alley, with me tailing a good 20 metres behind. He positions himself and takes aim. Bang! Bang! He fires one shot, then another. I come to a standstill. Stunned, I bend forward, resting hands on knees, trying to regain my breath.

In the meantime, F has jumped into her car and sped down the road. Her white Corsa comes to a screeching halt next to me. Not having followed the events develop, all she sees is a man wielding a gun. To her mind, he is the teenager’s accomplice, shooting at me. In full panic, she throws open the passenger door, leans across, grabs my arm and pulls me into the car. She reverses as fast as she can to the intersection, before I can even utter a word.

A small crowd has gathered alongside the street, attracted by the shouting and the gunshots. But most neighbours prefer to watch the scene from the safety of their verandas or peep out behind half-closed curtains. Somebody says they called the police. We wait a good 30 minutes, but they never come. Bored, people start to walk back into their houses. The man has long walked off, with a brief nod but without explaining himself.

“You were crazy running after that guy. What would you have done had you caught him?” F asks as we walk back into our house, referring to the fact that, at 1.60 meters and 50kg, I would have never been able to overpower a well-built teenager. I look at her blankly. “I don’t know,” I say eventually. “Never thought about it.”