Screaming, I woke up.� Instinctively, my hand went to the back of my head.� Surprisingly, there was no blood there. �
The gang member sleeping next to me angrily slapped me for disturbing him.� The slap brought me back to reality.� A sigh partly of regret and partly of relief escaped my mouth.� I wasn’t a royal queen, rather just a street thief.� I lay down again and thinking how real the dream had been, dozed off.
That night our gang busted open a jewelry shop.� Unluckily for us, the police was in the area.� Before we realized it, they were upon us.
I ran as fast I could. I was at an advantage because it was night time and I knew the streets.� After all, I was born and raised on them…..
My mother had died at my birth.� Of course, nobody knew who my father was; it is hard to keep track at a brothel.� Why my mother had chosen to give me birth is a mystery which I still haven’t solved.
My mother’s friends had more or less brought me up; my real friends, though, had been the streets and the gang I had joined when I was nine years old.
I was now twenty two and was a wanted man in many places.� It was a matter of pride for me to see my picture at police stations.� It always gave me an unexplainable exhilaration to walk by a police station and look at my picture.
To date, I had never seen the inside of a jail.� My friends told me I was lucky, but I told them that it wasn’t luck, but skills that kept me free.
But today I wasn’t feeling so sure about my skills.� I had had too much to smoke the previous night and I was feeling quite disoriented.�
My foot slipped on the pavement.� I fell down and hit my arm heavily against the gutter.
I was still recovering when a police officer came and grabbed me by my neck.� There was no hope now.� I would be badly beaten and would see the inside of a jail for months or even years.
I cursed him.
The police officer was breathing heavily.� After a few minutes, he made me stand up and strip off my clothes;� right there on the street!� I protested; he gave me a slap and said, “Do as you are told, sewer rat.”
I spat at him.
I felt his baton hit the right side of my skull…
