It’s almost midnight in New York City. Our heroine, Mimi Hawkins, is walking to her apartment on an empty street. She just had a lovely evening out with her friends and is dressed to impress. It’s not too cold out, so her clothes show a good bit of skin. Dangling from her hand is the brand new Gucci bag she bought only yesterday.
It’s nice and quiet, but Mimi has no music to fill her ears with, so she listens to the music of the city. Babies cry, fathers scream, lovers whisper, and cars honk.
Her calm concentration is broken by sharp clacking of flat shoes on concrete. At first it does not bother Mimi, but when the steady beat of footsteps grows unsteady and faltering she panics.
Flipping her hair, Mimi tries to look over her shoulder at the other pedestrian, but she can’t see any definite. Everything is shrouded in shadow. She keeps walking. Only after walking a bit forward, do the footsteps grow faster. Whoever is behind her is uncomfortably close and Mimi can clearly hear incoherent mutterings. There’s no one but the two of him, so Mimi’s terrified of her insane stalker. She should never have left the pepper spray at home.
Mimi has come to a crossroad with cars rushing past her, neon lights flaring. Panicking, Mimi glances down the street but the traffic is heavy and the light will not change. The footsteps stop only centimeters behind her and the mutterings are right in her ear.
Angry and fearful at the same time, Mimi slowly turns her head around. As suspected, a man is standing closely behind her, hunched over in a long black trench coat. She is about to angrily scream and him and then kick his groin, when a small flash catches in her. In his ear is a pulsating green disk. Ah ha! He’s only talking on his phone and not an insane serial insane rapist. How silly of Mimi to doubt this man’s good intentions!
Relaxed now, her muscles effortlessly unwound since there is nothing to fear any more. Breathing naturally, Mimi lowered her arms and gently smiled at nothing. While her fingers were first tightly wound around the handle of her beloved bag, they now lessened their grip.
While Mimi shook out her hair, the street light changed to green and the opposing traffic halted. After fixing a single loose hair, she took one step forward, but was knocked down by a hooded hoodlum rushing at her bag. With no resistance and a quick tug on his part the purse was quickly transferred into the hands of the thief.
As he ran out into the street and out of sight, Mimi started to hyperventilate and turned to the man behind her. “Aren’t you going to help me!” she shrieks at the man, who turns his head away from her. Fuming with rage, she roughly grabs onto his arm and shakes it.
“Can’t you see I’m on the phone?” he snaps at her in response and then walks away. (c)
No comments:
Post a Comment