The Old Town and the Thief

The European remnants, the touch of open space that comes with it, the tales my father used to recite, which then came alive in parts of the old buildings and ruins. That day, I swear, the crowd, Spongebob, Sasha and her bear, and the street musicians vanished before my eyes and the square was empty and silent. Until the bell from the old church started tolling again. It might have been the hours to call its congregation for a choral evensong, or for a public assembly. My eyes panned to the people passing by. A young man with black unbuttoned shirt and matching pants, he was lean and muscular with veins showing out of his hands all the way to his arms. His skin was dark naturally from the sun. He looked excited. From Koningsplein, more crowd came in. You can spot some Chinese labour workers decided to spend their break time to walk here for the show; some brought in children who looked half afraid, half excited. A platform had been erected at the front part of the Stadhuis, a hanging was expected. It was of a thief, caught as he ambushed a convoy of a plantation owner, who happened to be Dutch. He was brought and kept in the city hall’s dungeons before he was convicted. He then had the chance to defend himself before the court, but everybody knew the end of it.

He received a chance of freedom only through death. Yet death was better than being held in the cellar. A lot died within days after he was there. He never knew if the body that sit next to him – or even standing – was alive or lifeless. It felt the same. He felt a tad of relief when he had to climb the pedestal to get to the hanging platform. His nerves got to him when the rope was put around his neck, but that should be quite normal right? Everyone would share stage fright when the time to face the audience arrived. The thing was he would never see his audiences, they closed his eyes before his performance commenced. His hands were tied, literally and figuratively. His brain thought of nothing and of everything. His legs were the only thing that he could feel. He forced himself to sense the floor, his point of depart. He was also quite aware with his throat — dry. He hadn’t had anything to drink since last night, and it was merely drops of leaked water from the wall of the dungeon.

After a while, he finally caught up with the world. The murmuring noise from the crowd brought a sense of his vicinity. “Around a hundred people,” he said with no voice. Then, he counted to one hundred and counted backwards to zero. He lost track how many rounds of counting forward and backward before…

The floor disappeared.

He wriggled. Then he found: his legs were tied too. Damn you, Guards. You could’ve at least warned me. To stop himself from wriggling, he needed to find a ground to stand still – just like in the plan, he thought. He forgot to account that to find the floor, he needed to wriggle, he didn’t know his legs were going to be tied. “Life is what happens when you have plans,” the saying went. Pity, that the words could only find its truth when life persisted. Pity, that that was his only plan. Pity, that it was his only life.

He slightly hoped his squirming movement could at least open up a channel to pass a bit of air to his lung; then he’d hope the air that pass was enough. Just enough to entertain his lung until he could find the platform again; just enough until he could let go of himself. He regretted the idea and started his remorse.

And then he had no wish to live anymore. He only wanted to have everything ended; to have ‘the present’ passed.  He expected the pain, he had convinced – after weeks of talking and telling himself – that it would be bearable. He cursed himself because he had control of his mind but not his body, and his body’s wouldn’t respond any other way but to move. He didn’t account this lost of control. His game plan of escape death had been played so many times in his head, and it was bulletproof. “There was no bullet and no proof, you fool,” he then told himself.

I turned my back and saw the children who were standing at the same row with me, facing the show. I expected to see the horror in their face, but they’re clapping and cheering. In the solid heat of the afternoon, Spongebob was it. In the game of tag, he’s chasing Patrick and Dora the Explorer around the square. How jolly.