ramz

Let me tell you a little story. It’s a true story, that happened to a real person in the not-so-distant past.

So, this guy was feeling down, and decided, late at night, that he needed something. Sweets. A drink. Anything. He wasn’t in the mood for going to a pub, so he decided to take a short trip to the gas station right by his apartment, and buy something.

Once there, he was torn between buying a couple of chocolate bars or some alcohol. He decided on a couple of beers, and a small bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Here’s where the fun starts. Carrying the bottles in a bag, our young friend starts to walk back home, and passes an aggressive looking stranger, walking in the opposite direction. The stranger glances at him, but he ignores the glance and keeps walking. A few steps later, he hears the stranger say gruffly “Hey! Hey you!” That didn’t warrant a response, and our guy kept walking home. Suddenly, the stranger turns around, shouts something incomprehensible but distinctly aggressive, and starts running towards our friend. They were at most two meters apart when that happened, and our friend didn’t have time to think. He sensed the impending danger, and reacted immediately. He turned around, swinging the bag simultaneously. The bag connected with the stranger’s hip. Our friend followed that with a punch to the face of the stranger as he fell. Then, he turned and ran home. He heard the stranger scrambling up, in the darkness, but didn’t look back. A couple of minutes later, back in his apartment, adrenalin levels almost back to normal, he considered what had just happened. He felt guilty, somehow. On the other hand, he was in danger, and had to react. If it were a well-lit street or during the day, or had there been people around, he would have acted differently. But he wasn’t going to wait around in the darkness for a stranger, obviously up to no good, to pull a knife or worse.

Regret, relief, reflexes, remorse.

Those emotions came and went. This one persisted even throughout the following day:

I am so fucking glad I didn’t have to find out how much damage a bag full of chocolate bars would do to a mugger’s hip.