Chapter 16 : Beat

One day, Rani, Harry and I were having our lunch together as usual. But it was a little bit different this time. Unlike before, Harry did not tell us any classic tales like he always did. Instead, it was Rani taking over the story telling session with a "Hantu Pokok Pisang" (The Ghost of the Banana Trees) story that I once told her after watching the Incredible Tales series. I pretended like it was the first time of me hearing the story. It was beyond my expectation that the difference of that lunch session, would be followed by something unexpected that night.

That evening, right at 6pm I was already gearing up to end my shift. But it was raining cats and dogs outside and to think that I had to brace the rain from the Multi Purpose building to the Masjid Jamek area for a train home, I cancelled my plan and decided to continue my shift until 8.30pm

When I'm done with my work for that day, I went down to buy me some bread at the bakery in the Capital Square.

"Marina..." a guy was approaching me. His voice sounded very familiar. I turned around.

"Awh. Harry. What are you doing here? Still working?" I did not expect it to be seeing him that day.

"Oh I'm leaving for home. But I have to get some bread for someone. What about you?"

'Hmm...it must be for that snob Rita girl' I talked to myself.

"Same as you," I answered with a little smile.

"So, which one?" asked Harry.

"Which one? Which one what? Sorry I don't get it," I replied in confusion.

"So which part that makes you the same as me? Are you going home or buying a bread?"

"Oh. Both of them! I just got off from the office and stopped by here to get some bread. Except it's for me, not for someone else," I replied and laughed.

We both made our way out of the Capital Square, after we paid for the breads.

'Hmmm...This guy is sure a talkative one,' I said to myself as Harry just kept talking and talking since we met minutes ago. But it could be also that he just did not stop talking because every time a topic ended, I would start a new one and that's like fueling him to talk more and more.

"Aaaaaaa....!" out of the sudden, a woman was screaming not far from where we were. Her voice was so loud giving everyone in that space minor heart attacks, including us. As we were looking around for the owner of the voice, we saw a woman looking so panicked and stunned in front of the Multipurpose Building.  Harry and I quickly reached out to her as did the other passers-by.

"Miss! What happened?" Asked Harry.

"Yeah Miss, why did u scream? Are you okay?" I replied although I knew, of course she was not ok. Otherwise she wouldn't scream her lungs out would she?

"I'm okay. I'm fine. But...my bag! He snatched my bag!" said the lady pointing at a man running towards the main road.

Harry spotted that man and zuppp! He immediately sprinted to that snatcher. And that was something I didn't expect.

"Harry!" I shouted. Like Lois trying to catch Clark, I was about to run behind him as well. But the lady stopped me, while her eyes were looking at my shoes. I could tell she was actually reminding me that I was wearing a pair of high heels! Not flip flops or sneakers. Oh too bad! And so I cancelled that intention and just observing for him from here. Some other people who left the building gathered around when they knew what was happening.

"Careful Harry!" I shouted. I was so worried if bad thing would happen to him.

From afar, I could see Harry was getting closer to the snatcher. Then he jumped and kicked him from behind. Luckily the kick landed straight on the snatcher's lower back and that made him fell down. Harry took the bag from the bad guy's hand. But the snatcher managed to get up and run towards the road. Not happy with just the bag, Harry continued chasing that guy down.

"Enough Harry! Just let him go!" I shouted again, only to be ignored by him. He just did not give up.

At one roadside, there's a man waiting on a Kriss Modenas motorcycle. The snatcher ran to the bike and quickly hopped on it. There were two of them, obviously now. Harry almost made it to the bike and reached to one of them. Unfortunately both of these criminals kicked him down.

"Harry!" the poor victim lady and I rushed to him, followed by the rest of the witnesses.

"Harry! Are you all right? I told you to just let him go but you didn't listen!" I said it to Harry once I got to him. Deep inside my mind I told myself that I should be calm instead of nagging him like a mother would. That was not the right time to do so.

Harry reached into his pocket for a car key and then gave it to me.

"Marina...please..." said Harry so weakly.

            'Oh God, what's this? Did he just ask me to drive him to the hospital?' I thought to myself. Well, of course I could drive. I did have a driving license. But the problem was...Harry was driving a manually-geared car and I hadn't touched that type of gear since the last time I passed the driving test.

"It's okay, let me take him to the hospital. He has just saved my RM 7,000 from the snatcher. Let me pay him back," said the victim lady.

'Oh yes lady! How I appreciate your suggestion! Now I don't have to drive the manual car! But hold up! Why in the world were you walking around here with that much money? Have you lost you mind?' I spoke, in my mind.

At that moment, I couldn't help to think, how on earth the snatchers knew just how much money she was carrying? Perhaps, they had tracking devices embedded in their bodies. Just like sharks.

A few people who witnessed the incident surrounded us with so many questions. However we just answered them short and briefly. Due to Harry's fifty-nine kilograms of bodyweight, (my assumption, as me and the victim lady were trying to lift him up) I had to asked for these people's help to get Harry in his Proton Persona parked at just a stone's throw away. I thanked them and after making sure that he was comfortable, me and the victim lady whom later introduced herself as Sheila quickly went off to the nearby hospital.

*****

"Harry...how are you doing?" I got to him right as I saw him walking out of the doctor's room with Sheila following behind me.

"Just a little scratch on my hand. My body hurts a little bit too. But don't worry. I'm fine. In a few days I'll be back on the saddle!" Answered Harry.

"Harry, thank you very much for helping me out today," said Sheila.

"No worries!" said Harry, smiling. He suddenly laughed a little.

"What is it Harry?" I asked him, so confused.

"It's funny what I just did today."

"Why is that so?"

"I should have realized, that I'm not a superhero."

"Well there's no superhero or superhuman in this world Harry. But I must admit it, you were very brave just now..."

"Honestly I still couldn't believe it that I would go that far. Only now it's got to my head that what I've done could be pretty dangerous. Imagine they had a pistol or a knife with them, I don't know what would happen to me."

"Thank God we're all okay. Thank you so much again, Harry," said Sheila.

"No problem, Sheila. Oh by the way, it's getting late. Come, I'll send you both home."

"Are you going to drive, like this, Harry?" Sheila replied.

"Don't worry. I'm good! I can do it."

*****

It had been a week since the incident. I hadn't seen Harry anywhere around the Capital Square since. He just disappeared without any news. It made me wondering about his condition and to be quite honest, I was looking around for him every time I went down to the food court. Too bad Rani and I, we both did not have his phone number. I wondered why during those short period of time spent with him we never bothered to exchange our digits. This made me even more worried. Sometimes my heart told me to just go to the Terry Lee Publication and look for him. I felt very uneasy all the times. It was not that I could not live without him, but I was worried if something worse might had happened to him. However, I just kept that intention inside, as I did not want it to be misunderstood by anyone.

For two weeks, Harry was out of my radar. Until one day he suddenly showed up and broke to me an exciting news. Or an opportunity, to be more accurate.

"Marina! Harry wants to see you outside." said Rani after she went out of the office for a minute.

"What?? What are you saying again?" I could not believe what I heard. I did not expect that Harry who had been missing for two weeks would show up in front of my office looking for me.

"Harry! He's outside looking for you. Go now! He's been waiting for quite awhile," pushed Rani.

I left my work station and immediately went to the TNS's main entrance. From metres away I could see him standing there in the hall way typing something on his phone. When he realized I was there, I could see a big smile on his face.

"How are you doing Marina?" asked Harry.

"Never better. What about you?"

"I'm good too."

"It's been awhile since last time I saw you. Where have you been?"

"Nowhere. I was just upstairs in my office. I could not make it down for breaks. Heavy workload recently," explained Harry.

"I see," I nodded.

"Actually, I got something to ask you today."

"Something to ask me? What is it? You're making me nervous!"

"Don't be! I'm not a police," joked Harry.

"All right straight to the point. Two weeks from now, there will be a Kuala Lumpur International Books Festival here in PWTC. So, we need someone for our booth in there for ten days. I remember you told me the other day that your working time is pretty flexible, isn't it? So if you are interested and you have no problem about it I would like to propose your name to the editor in chief. How about that?"

"Hmm.. That sounds interesting! What about the pay?"

"RM 120 per day."

"Hmm not bad!" I replied, nodding my head. I must admit that's quite a big sum of money for that kind of job. More than what my friends were paid by MAPIM last year when they worked for that organization for the same festival last year.

"How is it, Marina?"

"I accept it!"

"Great! Now will you please be there at the PWTC the night before it start?"

"No problem! I will be there!" I convinced Harry with happiness shone bright on my face. Obviously, the salary offered by the Terry Lee Publication and Hey Magazine was making me so happy. Not only that, I just could not hide my excitement from this little opportunity to be able to run away from my normal marketing research job, even though it was just for 10 days!

'Is this a sign? What's the reason behind this?' My heart said.

'Ummm...Argh do I need to find the meaning or reason for every single thing that comes my way?' I laughed at myself.