First Day in the City

Ikenna was a pocket picker who has always wanted to expand in his craft. He was tired of stealing tubers of yams and baskets of tomatoes from people's farmland. He needed something big, he wanted something big. So Ikenna decided to travel to the big city known as Lagos.

He had seen people from his village travel there and come back with cars of different kinds. If there were big men in Lagos, there would be big pockets to pick. So Ikenna went to his little box where he had saved the money he had gotten from selling the things he had stole. The money was enough to get him on a night bus to Lagos and probably get him a few things to eat for a day or two. He would sort out his accommodation when he got there.

So Ikenna took the few belongings he had and got on the bus. He had no family or friends so there wasn't anyone to say goodbye to.

His first night in Lagos had been terrible. It was like the mosquitoes in the city all had senior ranks compared to the one in the village. He had slept under a bridge and had used his bag as a pillow.

On a normal circumstances, he would have entered the first bus back to the village the next day but his determination coupled with the fact that he had no money on him made him to stay back.

When morning arrived, he got up and went into the market. He had planned to do some surveillance that day and start stealing the next. He needed to know the places that were mostly busy during the day. Those were the places where he would hit the most. No one would notice their pocket being emptied with all the noise and walking about that would be happening around them.

He found a spot to sit and watch. With the kind of people he saw passing by, he could already feel himself getting rich. He was still basking in the euphoria of everything around him when he noticed something. The guy was swift and fast but one of the advantages of being in this kind of business meant you will have the eyes of an eagle. So when the guy collected the wallet of an unsuspecting victim, Ikenna saw him. Ikenna focused on him as he watched this stranger dip his hand into the pockets of different victim.

The whole thing was beginning to excite Ikenna and he was already rethinking starting the next day when something happened. The guy he had been watching for the past fifteen minutes got caught. And before Ikenna could spell out his own name, the thief was set ablaze. This was the first time Ikenna was seeing a man burnt alive, the image refused to leave his head.

As he walked back to the bridge that evening, one thing was certain, he was no longer a pocket picker.

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