How I Was Once Robbed

I still remember that night in 2011 as if it were yesterday. That night, I was feeling high in spirits like teenagers in a rock concert. In my excitement, I switched on my Dad's computer here at home and began listening to Catholic hymns. The hymns moved me so deeply that I sang alongside the computer recordings. As I enjoyed the hymns, Mum came into my room to find out why I was singing aloud. She found my behaviour abnormal.

Mum must have annoyed me for interfering with my excitement because as soon as she began talking to me, I picked a bottle of water, left home and went to a neighbouring place where I continued talking aloud to myself. I really was feeling high, but not as a result of taking drugs or alcohol. It was a natural high I felt occasionally due to bipolar disorder - a mental illness I used to suffer from before Jesus healed me.

Unbeknownst to me, there happened to have been a man who was observing me that night as I talked to myself while moving about like a hen that had just laid an egg. When I eventually spotted the man, I approached him and greeted him cordially. But alas! The man suddenly turned hostile towards me.

Although I was dressed smartly in a tie, the man mistook me for a thief. He thought I was plotting to steal from someone or commit a crime in the area. I tried to appease him by informing him I was a resident of the area and that my home was not far from where we were. But he still couldn't take me at my word. He continued interrogating me in a stern, harsh manner like a policeman.

What's worse, he thought the bottle I had in my hand was an alcoholic drink. I told him frankly that it was water. And when he couldn't believe it, I asked him to smell it. Even though the bottle didn't smell like the alcohol he thought it was, the man was still convinced I was a criminal. After he threatened to take me to the police, I became alarmed, for I feared what had occurred to me a few months before might happen to me again.

You see, a few months before that night, I had run away from home. When I was finally caught, I was forcefully taken to a clinic where I was diagnosed with a mental illness, injected with a drug that drove me to sleep and admitted to the clinic for a week or two. It was such a heart-rending experience.

Not wanting another similar admission to hospital on that night the man found me talking to myself in a place not far from home, I was ready to do anything to let him make me go back home scot-free. So when he asked me whether I had any money in my pocket, I readily gave him all I had - a mixture of coins and a note that amounted to about Ksh. 85.

Encouraged by my submissiveness, the man also asked me for my phone. I gave it to him, hoping that he would leave me alone. When I handed him my phone, he took out my SIM card and inserted his into the phone. After he inserted his SIM card and started dialling something on the phone, I became worried that he might call someone in authority. But guess what! All he did was slap me in the face while commanding me to disappear from the scene.

I obeyed the man and ran back home where I found my parents preparing to have supper. Trying to appear calm, I joined them without mentioning a word about what had transpired to me. A day or two later, I felt bitter in my soul as I pondered on how the man had easily robbed me of my money and phone while thinking he was doing right. I thought to myself that I should have acted more courageously by being tough on the man as he was on me.

Because the man interrogated and robbed me at night, I didn't make out his face. So I never recognized him if I ever met him again in broad daylight. Given how embittered I felt, I am sure I would have challenged him to a fight if I had had another encounter with him. Thankfully, I have long since gotten over that bitterness. But I will never forget the sly and cruel manner in which the man took advantage of me and walked off with my money and my most prized possession: my phone, that is.

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NEW! NEW! NEW! If you missed my social media update three days ago, let me take this opportunity to inform you that I have produced a new song that is available in the videos' section of this blog. Just click on the "videos" link on the menu at the top of this blog to access the song.