Peculiar

Saturday, 12^th of January, 2019.

               Dear friends and readers, what you all are about to read right now is not yet about my experience in Cape Town. Damn it! That probably will take me two followed posts. But I decided to write about something that just happened to me, about three hours ago. And even that it happened here in Cape Town, it is just one singular event. While writing this, I am having a Double Black Johnnie on rocks. If you know me ,you are probably wondering why I am doing this. I do not drink whisky. Well, lest just say that when I arrived at Aziz’s home, alive, I said that famous movie speech: “I need a drink!” And since that the options where or our dear Mr. Walker or a too sweet sweet white wine, “Here’s Johnny!”
              Do you have sixth sense? I am actually not a fan of this term, so whatever we can call it, do you? I prefer to call our extra sensitivity. That feeling telling you that something is going to happen; that feeling that you should go in this or that direction; all those signs that you decide to ignore when you are liking someone but you know you should not going on, etc. Do you ever heard it? I mean, actually listened and let it prepare you? I had an interesting conversation about it with Paula and she told me that it is possible to develop those kind of extrasensory things. And I really wanted to do it. But then to day, after what was already such a horrible day, I told myself in a moment of fury, that there was not such a thing, that was stupidity to believe it. Is not ironic that just some minutes after I had one of the most important ones? Or is just too obvious to tell yourself that something bad is going to happen to you when you are walking at night in one of the most dangerous cities in the world?
              After 20 kilometers walking I was not that exhausted. Yay! And I know it it would be around 25 in total, so I was happy with my resistance. Girl, I would be even happier soon. When I felt that something it would happen, I told myself “Prepare to action”. Is that made any difference? Was I more prepare that I usually am?
              Also “ironically”(maybe not), I decided to wear, for the first time that I go walking to town, a dress. My red retro dress. All the other times I was wearing my long shorts and big t-shirts. And I know, not by a fashion eye but by a security system one (which has accompanied me for the last 13 months travelling around Africa), that people keep distance of me when I look like a man. Is not just about my owl tattoo and the fact that they think I am a which, is a natural bigger fear that most people have of men than women. So there am I, in my short and tidy red dress and not in my boots, but in my All Star Converse. I see two people about two hundred metres of me. At the beginning I thought they were coming in my direction, because we were getting closer to quickly. But then I realize that is me who is walking to fast and getting close them too much. Too much.
              You see, I made the bad decision or what? I decided to pass them instead of keep a safe distance and maybe they would not see me. Or would they wait for me anyway?
              A guy in a bicycle pass. A white guy. He did thought about talk to me and get out of his bike and walk with me. Maybe he was not the “hero” kind of guy.
              I get close enough to see that they are two men. And to my bad, they do not look like two ordinary guys, just walking around.
              They see me. I am getting close. But what I can do right now? It is a long and big road which connects Century City to the Yacht Club or the town and the Waterfront too. And I cannot go back to anywhere because there is nowhere to go back. So I lie to myself and think that they are just two normal and innocent guys, who are probably as much scared of me as I am of them.
              Well, at least they are worse liars than I! They look at me, the one in my left get closer to the other and say something before push him out to the other road. Probably to stay there and grab me in case I decide to run in that direction. Then, in the worse interpretation in the history of the crime, the one who remains in front of me, goes down and pretend to be tying his shoes. Nice shoes by the way. I pass him. I start to walk even faster.
              I do not look completely back but pretending that I am looking to the view on my left, the ocean, I can see him. The other one is across the road and since is a big road he is far from me. After what sounded like a long time, I can see the one that is behind me, started to run. But he is not desperately running, like chasing me, no, he is running like someone who is practicing the sport. Just running. Her passes me and ten metres after, he came back to me.
              I cannot see appropriately if it is a knife that he is holding or something else. Honestly now thinking did not looked like one. The blade it was kind of white. He was black, around his late thirty’s (but who can say for sure when those kind of guy use so much drugs that change them a lot) and he had just two or three teeth. He was not bad dressing at all. Nice sport clothes to go on with his nice running shoes. Maybe he was not even a thief but just saw on me an opportunity.
              At the same moment he showed me his knife, I showed him my pepper spray. He did not pointed the knife to me, it was pointed down. His words were “Just give me the phone”. My most sincerely words were – I do not have one. And believe me or not I add one I am sorry, man at the end. I do not know if he believed in me or was just scared of the pepper spray or if in those 30 second more or last, the cars were already coming, but he left, crossing the road and going back in the direction I had coming. I ran too but in direction of home.
              The weird thing also is that I was just twenty or thirty metres from the bus stop. He did not even though about that?
              My fear now was if they would go around (it is a big open space right where I must turn) and stop me again somewhere in front. I kept running for what looked as a eternity when you think in how much I was tired. Woman you can get much more energy that you imagined when your life is in danger. Where the hell is that energy when you need to do simple things, like spending the whole night awake with that person that you like. Oh! Look at me saying all kind of crap just because was almost stabbed. OK, OK, where the hell is that energy when you are late to take a bus or a train or for that important interview and cannot walk faster than a turtle? When you need to finish cleaning the house and you mother is almost coming back and she knows you spend the last few hours in front of the computer? (or Netflix nowadays…)
              While I am running, a car stops and the guy ask me if I am fine. My answer? Kind of… He left.
              I keep running and walking and trying to breath. I arrive at Aziz’s house. I am alive and not harm. I need a drink. I need to write.
              How do I feel about it now? It is weird. It is like it had not happened. Like a bad dream. And like by the time I was almost kidnap in Tangier, Morocco, I did not cried. Yay! At the shower I tell myself: Fuck it! I will finally watch Chucky. If I can deal with this fucking situation, I can watch that fucking movie. Let’s start with Sixth Sense for tonight.