The Robbery

“You’ve reached Deanna’s answering machine. I’m not here right now so please leave a message.” I hung up. She was over an hour late, and as a particularly impatient person, this was absolutely unacceptable. Half out of restlessness, and half out of anger, I left our designated meeting spot and made my way to Central Park. I tried my best to avoid the crowd: the dough-faced tourist, the fervent jogger, even the city squirrel (for they are a fine breed!) Lumbering down the road, treading on twigs and branches, I spotted a shadowy underpass, cool and damp from the archway above it, and made my way over.

I had been there for only a few seconds before someone had pilfered my wallet from my back pocket and emptied its contents on to the pavement. “What just happened?” he said, as he picked up two five-dollar notes from the ground. He came closer, “What just happened?” His stare was locked, and for thirty seconds we looked at each other; just two people in the same space, breathing simultaneously. Bewildered and confused, I did not answer. He took a step back, then another. Step after step, he slinked away while I edged closer to my freedom. Finally, he ran off.

For minutes, I stood as stoic as the trees surrounding me, and, having deemed it safe, I lowered my branches to pick up the wallet. Defiled and empty, it looked foreign in my hands and, as I stood in contemplation, I did not know how to react. I was neither sad nor happy; I was clear. That moment, after my robbery, I felt the exhilaration of living for the first time. I did not stand separated from life. Instead, I dove straight into the stream of being and existed only in the indispensable present that surrounded me. By remarkable means I had escaped a precarious situation, unlike anything I had encountered in the past. I asked myself, “Did he have a knife? A gun? Did he have a love of credit cards or keys? Would he memorize my address and could it happen again?” I didn’t care. The future and the past had fallen away.
Surviving even the most trivial encounter had reminded me of my humanity. I had crossed the threshold of danger and survived. These moments in which we seem to die, but are reborn can never be forgotten because they are what gives us hope. As I stood preoccupied with the metaphysical, I heard a ring. “Hey, sorry I’m late,” she said. “You won’t believe what happened to me on the train!”