SURVIVED BY A WHISKER

                     SAVED BY THE ELEVATORS

 “I didn’t steal, no, I didn’t steal,” Juliet kept on assuring herself as she came through the double French doors like a bulldozer. Almost bursting out, running, she swept like a whirlwind towards the west end of the corridors. Her hope was to use the stairs going downwards. She was mistaken, it was a dead end.

“Mamaaaaaaaa!” she wailed silently while turning hurriedly to go the other way, but she had turned too carelessly.

 “Madam, check where you are going, please!” a man lying on his back, eyes wide open in shock, had spread arms in an attempt to drive home his complaints. She had collided with him as she turned around. He was pushing a tall chest of papers and files. Now his load lay in an ugly spray on the slippery floor. The sickening clatter of a falling trolley forced a thousand mouths to sketch out ugly rings on wooden faces.

“Oh! You are an idiot! Juliet’s evil-twisted lips spat at him and her virulent eyes glared at him with a sea of hate, she despised him. She shook a fist in his face but had to change mood quickly when a chorus of disapproval from the onlookers shook the corridors.

“I am sorry, sir!” she tossed a sudden apology and swept past through the little space he had left from the chipboard wall. She was racing towards the other end of the corridors. 

The fallen man twisted his neck like a tortoise to look at her disappearing back. He shook his head, now dominated by both disgust and disbelief. However, as the shock cleared from his mind, a nagging feeling immediately swept away all the rage. 

He was a mortal man, like all the others. The undulating sweep of Juliet’s silhouette, the swinging head with permed hair, and the dick-harassing hip-swings captured him, killed his mind. His problems worsened when just for a second, she threw an anxious glance back. He halted in his struggle of getting to his feet, to assure her that it was alright, but the tongue stuck to the roof.

Unaware of the ‘commotion’ she was causing, Juliet pounded the floors like a fleeing gazelle heading to the other end.

 ‘Please you, where are these stairs mweee…?” she was now panic-stricken, fear clawing at her agitated mind like an insect on bare skin. “The damn stairs must be somewhere here,” she cried hoping to reach the first floor before someone became wiser. 

And to her bounden relief, even before her cry could finish, she saw the banister rails curving downwards, the stairs. 

“Bless you mama!” her superstitious heart lifted up slightly, though some butterflies still kept her stomach buzzing with there little cyclone. Her sneakers squeaked on the uncarpeted floors as she whirled around faster than a tram car, turning to the right, towards the balustrades. 

But as she reached the stairs, her heart crushed like a sandy landslide, battered by a cruel disappointment.

The stairs were jam-packed with a thick flow of people; all slow-moving, going both ways and some laughing hilariously at whatever they found exciting. 

 “What a cursed crowd of idiots!” Juliet cursed angrily. She looked back; just checking if some guards could be coming behind, there was no one. But she knew that it would just be a matter of time before they did. 

Blindly searching for a way out, she bumped into an elderly woman with a C-shaped backbone. Ignoring the pained look on the aged face, Juliet covered her with a barrage of insults which was aborted when an orange elevator light flashed a meter to her left hand. “Ahaaaaaa! ”She burst into wild celebrations thanking her lucky stars for timely intervention. Without asking herself why no one wanted to use the elevators, she changed direction and dashed for the blessed carriers. 

She punched the button for the First floor and burst into the elevators even before the twin doors had flung themselves wide open. “Now I will be far away by the time they wake up from that stupid slumber and decide to send someone after me.”

“Pyuuuuu!”Juliet breathed a sigh of relief as the doors slammed and the lift started descending with a refreshing whirl, the whirl of a bird in full flight. It was a whirl taking her to safety, to her freedom. In a two by two elevator space, she was alone. But not for long.

On the seventeenth floor, someone detained the lift for almost ten minutes to let in another passenger, a middle-aged man, dark in complexion and tall. His huge beefy hands clasped a briefcase which he tried desperately to conceal under a newspaper. Juliet’s heart flopped below the normal pulse.

 “I didn’t steal, no, I didn’t steal,” she tried the standard chorus to raise her moods while clutching her sisal bag more firmly. She was watching the newcomer with alarm. Instinctively she touched the bulge in the sisal bag and was gratified when her fingers felt the hardness; “It is there alright,” she whispered to herself.

“Hurrrrrrrh! Nthuuuu!”The man cleared his throat and spat on the floor of the elevators. It was heavy yellow-orange phlegm, sticky and revolting. Juliet jumped in agitation like a rabbit; eyes wide open like an owl, staring at the man.

To her surprise, apart from that indiscretion, he made no attempt at communicating with her at all. Not even sparing her a wink; he devoted all his attention to reading a newspaper.

She looked at the phlegm with extreme revulsion. However, with limited options; she decided to devote her attention to the mission at hand, how to outwit the pursuers and how she was going to pass through the gate, the one that leads to the main road. There was bound to be a checkpoint, she had seen some hornbill-looking man standing there, probably checking on everyone leaving the premises. 

The thought was still clearing the first section of her brain when a loud peal from outside knifed through her soul. Instinctively, she dropped to the floor, holding the sisal bag in both hands. It was eons before she started clambering to her feet, all the time her trembling lips kept on whispering;” I didn’t steal, no, I didn’t steal.”

She was shaking convulsively but settled down when she saw how the man was reacting to the sound. He did not crash to the floor like her but went on reading the newspaper as if nothing had happened. When she calmed down, he dropped the newspaper-reading pretense and spoke to her quietly. 

“Where are they?”He asked in a menacing voice. He looked at her with steady eyes like the firing squad as he dropped the briefcase to the floor carelessly.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Juliet lied and started fidgeting with the sisal bag.

“You do,” he challenged her as a black wooden handle pistol suddenly appeared under the newspapers. “I want the jewels?” he said now getting angry. 

Juliet looked at the man with horror. Her terror worsened when she somehow remembered seeing a similarly dressed man near the trolley man. And hey, when she collided with the C-shaped woman. He was there...was he following her?

“I haven’t seen any jewels,” Juliet said now trembling. ‘Please…” Juliet stopped talking when she saw the man start wiping the muzzle. 

“I will count up to five and then start shooting,” he said while flicking the pistol on his finger.

“Ha! Why?”Juliet asked looking at the man with wide eyes. She took a great risk getting the jewels and would she hand them over like a tithe in church, never. But the gun made things a bit dangerous.

She didn’t realize that the lift had stopped moving, it was hanging motionlessly because something or someone had cut off power. The whole X-DOME COMPLEX was now thrown into an afternoon power outage. The man seemed in complete control of everything.

“It looks like the lift has stopped moving,” he said looking at Juliet for a reaction. “I will have more time to deal with you as they fix it.”

“But if you shoot me the people out will hear the sound,” Juliet tried to warn the man.

He then took a long tube and started screwing it to the end of the pistol.

‘I believe you know this…,” he couldn’t finish talking.

Suddenly, there was a real commotion outside. In addition to the power outage, the whole place was now invaded by a detachment of police officers. The blue peaks were in massive control as if they were more in numbers than the ordinary people.

“Open your pockets, let’s see what you have stolen,” the constable was shouting from outside the lift. Juliet heard him. Her heart freaked out, pleading for a way out.

“I don’t want, why I should open them for you?” someone cried out.

“Kwaaa—kwaaa!”The slaps added more commotion to the howls of pain. The mixture sailed to reach Juliet, sending her into a more agitated panic.

“Inspector, just undress everyone,” Captain Munaumba suggested after a few more people were given slaps without results. ”We can’t be drawing blanks everywhere.”

The inspector, a sly fox-faced man studied the situation. “Alright, Sergeant Kapwi will round up all the women and search them in the basement. You do the same with the men here.”

There were angry howls of protest as all the people were whipped into line in readiness for the search.

However, the exercise crumbled to failure almost from scratch. The search brought Captain Munaumba face to face with a well- built man, with the face of a fearless warrior.

 “Why this indignity?”The man shouted. 

“Indignity, you are calling police business indig…” Captain Munaumba was already swinging a slap but had to retreat into his shell. A badge was flashed in his face.

“Oh sorry, Admiral Kawambwa,” he started his apologies and went for the next man. 

“This will make interesting reading in tomorrow’s papers, Captain,” the admiral baked the young man and went on; “better change the game style.”

When the exchange reached Juliet’s lift, her companion became even more aggressive; his threats permeated Juliet’s skin to the bone, worsening her fears.

“Sir, I beg you,” she pleaded with the man, “I don’t have any….”

“Okay, okay, we will see,” he said as he grabbed her hair with one hand and started pulling.

The man was pulling very hard making Juliet’s eyes watery with tears. Her forehead was strung out with veins standing out like angry bruises. Her hand holding the sisal bag was now weakening, any time it would drop, but suddenly, someone smashed on the door of the lift from outside. 

The man jerked in reaction, becoming so jittery that he let go of Juliet’s hair and even the gun dropped to the floor with a clatter. He hurriedly stooped down to pick it. 

Juliet reacted quickly. It was now or never, her life or his. Coming behind hurriedly, she raised the heavy sisal bag in both hands and smashed his backbone. She repeated the procedure, this time smashing the sisal bag on his head as he crashed to the floor. 

The man granted painfully as his tall form crashed to the floor and scattered about. “Stupid, nthuuuu!” she cursed him and spat on his still form. She was smoothening her dress and massaging her injured hair when some activity outside brought her back to the same agitations of a few minutes ago.

“What about the elevators?” someone asked.

The mention of the word elevators pushed Juliet to breaking point. Her heart started galloping in her small chest like a lion in a cage. Her lips suddenly became dry and cracked like a dry river bed. 

 “All the elevators are down,” someone answered as if trying to help her, “besides there is no power.”

“Pyuuuuu!” a quiet breeze of air escaped involuntarily from Juliet’s lips. She breathed a sigh of relief.

 “What have they said about the elevators?” Kapwi came from the other end shouting, “The criminals cannot just vanish like morning dew. They could be there.”

“The operator says the elevators aren’t working,” captain Munaumba answered her hurriedly.

“What if they are jammed with people inside?” Kapwi was now touching her lips like someone who had solved a puzzle. “Let’s check them.”

“The damn things are jammed,” that was Admiral Kawambwa, “can’t you search elsewhere, other than wasting time on jammed lifts?”

“Okay,” Kapwi agreed reluctantly, “Captain, has he taken over police duties?”

“No, just advising, right, Admiral?” Captain Munaumba answered. The big man nodded sourly. His gaze on Kapwi was paternal, though Kapwi’s trained eye spotted a layer of animosity cleverly buried beneath.

 “I saw a strange woman on the nineteenth floor,” A woman with a C-shaped backbone shouted excitedly. “She looked jittery and kept on bumping into people all the way as she went towards the ele.....”

“As she went towards the what, madam?” Captain Munaumba forgot that his mouth was inelegantly agape, like someone in deep sleep. The service would definitely find that posture inconvenient. But reporters would just celebrate a field day.

“Bana Kazana, shut up,” a man clamped a hand on the woman’s mouth and dragged her away. '"Don't listen to her, she is sick."

"Hey, let her go, "Captain Munaumba rushed to grab the man's shirt, but at the same time Admiral Kawambwa also was grabbing the captain's shirttail. It was becoming a small tangle until some commotion on the stairs brought some calmness in thinking.

The stairs creaked lazily because Mutenge Investments managing director, Lady Mutenge, was coming down on them hurriedly. She looked like a drum dressed in a wide blue flair. She was so enraged that she could eat a buffalo for breakfast.

“Police! Hey, you police!” she shouted, “the thief must be in that lift.” her long finger pointed sharply towards the elevators.

Hearing that statement, Juliet again started panicking. “Mamaaa! Ahaaaaaa, what will I do now?” She was walking about the lift floor, jumping the still body of her victim, a very worried woman. Only the next flow of words calmed her slightly.

“Relax madam,” Captain Munaumba put a hand on the Director’s shoulder, trying to cool her down, ‘we have been reliably informed that those lifts are damaged. And even if they were working, no one can use them without power.”

The director hesitated a bit, looked unsure, before she continued; “Just check them, in case…I have lost priceless jewels and that is in the last twenty minutes…”

“No need Madam, why waste time searching dead elevators?” Admiral Kawambwa said hurriedly, like someone with an interest in keeping the elevators untouched. 

“Alright everybody,” Captain Munaumba called to his officers, “nothing for us here, let’s get moving.”

As the police siren wailed its way out of the X-DOME complex, Juliet smashed a fist into her arm celebrating. “I will just wait briefly and then come out of this pigsty,” she comforted herself with a wink towards the fallen man.

it was three hours when power was restored. The lift suddenly started whirling in movement, going downstairs. When it reached the first floor the doors suddenly opened and Admiral Kawambwa entered.

Juliet didn't need any company, As soon as the military man entered the lift, she looked at him as if he was a dangerous beast, and just as the doors crashed in closing she quickly flung herself out into the corridor. There she landed with a thud.

Admiral kawambwa took time to react, his attention taken by the man scattered on the floor. But he quickly snapped out of his lethargical approach and struggled to launch an assault on the woman.

The woman was fleeing from him after dropping his man, knocking him out. He desperately stretched a hand to grab her, but he was just too late. And it was unfortunate for the Zambia Navy, his hand was crushed to a pulp by the lift doors.

on coming out of the lift, Juliet crushed into the surprised crowd and was out of the gate before anyone realized where she had hidden.She survived by the skin of her nose.