Was in this old jalopy of a kombi on my way from town to the legendary small "town" of Epworth in Harare. Remember Epworth is the town where it all happens. Despite being very much within the vicinity of town, the town, with its rural setup has few facilities that can qualify it to be a town at all.
Shortie was at his usual pastime, that of sneaking at people as they used their small gadgets, namely the cellphone. Shortie even boasts that he can read from somebody's phone as they are texting and / or keying in the numbers of recipients. Whatever he does with the plagiarised numbers, nobody knows. One day we had a heck of a torrid time as we tried to reason with him not to carry out his heinous act which we all the Terraces knew that it would end up with misery at someone's doorstep.
As he reasoned out, Shortie had eavesdropped on a chat ensuing between a woman he knew and a man he never knew. But, because Shortie knew the woman's husband, he felt that he owed this poor man who was not aware of his wife's wayward ways a favour by furnishing him with the latest gossip about the woman's extra-marital affairs.
As you are aware, this is very much against the ethics of us all at the Terraces, so we finally managed to dissuade him from finishing off the few marital ties that remained between this woman and her husband at home. But, unfortunately, we could not convince him to mind his own business every time he was sitting nearer to anybody who was using their cellphone to send an SMS (remember the short message service facility that one can use today to send messages via their phone or other gadgets, much to the demise of the postal service).
This story, as it was told to us by a third party, did indeed take place. Obviously, trying to get confirmation from Shortie, Rangwani or anyone else at the Terraces will usually end up in the person posing the question, either receiving a violent backlash or the over-spiced, exaggerated account of the story that pushes one beyond the realms of credibility. In fact, by the time the story reaches the climax, any body listening to it would be left wondering how come the victim is still alive after all these adventurous escapades. But, regardless of the angle from which you hear the story, the truth will remain that Shortie broke his leg in the process after an altercation with the kombi crew.
It turned out that, as Shortie was peaking his eagle eye on this woman's phone with curiosity, obviously expecting to hear some juicy news which would form part of his gossip adventures once at the Terraces. The problem now being that Shortie would go as far as trying to use the information so illegally collated to blackmail unfortunate persons found wanting in the transaction.
Unfortunately, on this occasion, the horrible news that he weaned from the phone's screen was not so good to hear. At first, he could not believe the story, but, a peak, another peak and whoosh, Shortie was shivering all over. Shortie had cught sight of
"Hey Driver, let me drop, here! I do not want to continue with the journey anymore! Please drop me off," he screamed, to the surprise of all in the small kombi.
"Hey, what is wrong man, but we have not even arrived at Chan's Shopping Centre? Didn't you say you are going to Epworth?" asked the driver, and his conductor concurred with him.
"No, I am sorry, I have to go back to town, please!" he was almost crying now.
The passengers within the kombi were disgruntled by this man's behaviour, because some were refraining him from jumping out of the fast moving kombi. Even the four men who had been sitting near him at the back could not refrain him, and "whoosh!", before they could fathom what was happening, he had bolted out through the broken back window, into the darkness.
"Hey, what is happening here?", a police officer who was also part of the passengers and sitting between the first row of the passenger seats and the driver's section asked, at the same time bidding the driver to stop. To all those who had the privilege of going to Epworth, the area near the famous historical monument of the Balancing Rocks is also famous for being a hunting area for robbers and other prey seekers. So, the whole kombi agreed that it was for the safety of this man and the need to avoid the inquisitive police detectives that they had to go back and look for Shortie.
Just some few metres back, Shortie was howling at the top of his voice as it was obvious that he had landed so precariously and had broken some of his limbs in the process. But on seeing the same kombi from which ha had tried to make a miraculous escape, he howled more.
"Please leave me alone, there is a big snake in the kombi!", to which everybody fled pandemoniusly in all directions. A few of those people who remained within the kombi wanted to know exactly where the offending serpent was.
