Bleeding Fiction

On Thursday, I was the victim of an attempted mugging. Or maybe I was almost the victim of a successful mugging? Not sure; I just know that me and my worldly goods came close to being separate.

Here's what happened: I was walking home from campus, down the same city street I walk down every day, with my iPod in my hand, fiddling with the volume. A guy came walking along in the opposite direction; nothing out of the ordinary, there. Until he lunged over and slapped the iPod out of my hand. He bent down to pick up the iPod, his legs set to bolt as soon as he had it. I guess he was hoping that he'd take me by surprise and outrun me before I could react.

My reaction was a little quicker than he expected, I guess. I kicked him. Hard. I didn't even think about it; just automatically dropped my left leg back and then snapped it up into his bent-over chest. I hit him somewhere sensitive and soft, and he dropped like a stone. I grabbed my iPod and left him on the ground wheezing for breath as I jogged away.

Normally you get a shot of adrenaline when shit like this happens; a jolt of energy that kicks you into high gear, keeps you moving, plays hell with your sense of timing. Not so much here; I was calm as hell, heartbeat steady. I was more concerned for my iPod than anything else. The whole time, I was just worried that it'd been hurt in the fall.

(It hadn't, by the way.)

Truth is, I feel a little bad about kicking the guy. Sure, he was trying to thief me, and I'm glad I kept him from doing that, but I prefer to think of myself as a pacifist. Oh, I talk a big game, threaten violence all the time, but folks know I'm not serious about that. I don't actually like hurting people. But it's apparently my response to an attempted theft, and I think I'd rather not have known that.