The day it rained coins

Jeannette Cabraal

Miss Perera stood at a bus halt waiting for a bus or a coach to the Fort. She was a retired teacher of English and had just drawn her pension for the month, and so clung to her handbag for dear life. She looked nervously around for suspicious looking characters and the moment someone stood by her, she discreetly moved away; at the same time she has no desire to be found alone at a halt either. She always felt tense and suspicious when she carried more than usual money on her and had a sneaky feeling that she must be giving herself away with this jittery disposition.

These days one couldn’t be sure who would be a pickpocket or a highway robber. It could be the thuggish type with the ferocious looking countenance and the ‘come for a fight’ attitude, habitually folding up his sarong; it could be the gentleman all spruced up; it could even be the dolled up woman complete with the latest hairdo. One never could say.

After what seemed to her to be ages, a coach drew up with a youth as conductor, yelling himself hoarse and almost commandeering people to get in. As it was not so crowded as coaches go an feeling the companionship in a vehicle better than a lonely stand at a bus halt she clambered in, helpfully pushed in by the youth. The vehicle took off even before she could maintain a balance. In the second seat on the right by the window was a lady and feeling safe with one’s own species, she plumped down in the vacant space next to her.

As the coach whizzed along, stopping abruptly at halts with screeching brakes, plummeting the passengers forward, it filled up.

Luckily for Miss Perera there was a pole just by her seat and she was able to maintain her balance with its help. A man in national dress looking every inch an ‘iskole mahattaya’ now stood next to her, sometimes leaning on the pole by her, sometimes swaying holding onto the overhead pole. On his arm hanging from a strap was a zipped wallet. Miss Perera was visibly irritated by this man’s proximity and kept on glancing up and behind and was renewed to see a well dressed young man, in fact immaculately dressed complete with tie, just behind. She relaxed on seeing him.

The coach sped like the wind and it was anybody’s guess as to whether they would reach their destinations all in one piece.

Suddenly the coach swerved dangerously and while the passengers held their breath and struggled to maintain their balance, coins of all denominations rained down on Miss Perera, most of them on her lap, some on the floor of the coach.

Completely flummoxed, she looked up. The coach screeched to a halt, one passenger suddenly making a frantic bid to get off. It was the well dressed young man. The man in national seemed highly amused at the rain of coins and though his laugh seemed to be infectious and her ridiculous position calling for amusement, she was too bewildered to look at the funny side of it. She collected the coins on her lap and held them up to whoever owned them.

The man in national spoke aloud for the edification of the passengers. “Look at my wallet madam. The zip is intact but it has been cut with a sharp tool. That’s how you had a rain of coins. It was that immaculately dressed young man. You see madam, people will suspect a man in national like myself. But a gentleman of that type never. Anyway he must have got as rude a shock as you did. But the bulk of my money - the notes - are safe with me in here”, he said patting his shirt and pulling out a large wad of notes in an envelope safely hidden away in an inside pocket.