Thread: From different sides of the road (TinyThings & Adam)

Daniel Galanis panted heavily as he leaned against a tall birch and hanged his head down in exhaustion. OK, that hadn't quite went as smoothly as he had planned it. In his mind, when he had pictured how it was supposed to go, he had just silently nicked the smartphone from the rich suit guy at the outdo dining area at the posh restaurant. He had his face buried deep in the Financial Times, he wouldn't even notice. Or miss it once it was gone, for that matter. But off course that's not how it went down. He had been busted in the act, the owner had yelled at him, and off course there was a police car just around the corner. For some reason there was always police nearby to the south of the highway, while you never saw them on the north side were most of the crimes were committed. So Daniel had been forced to run, jump over some fences in the flight and now he was standing here, safe and alone in the forest that surrounded the pretty little upstate New York town of Newburgh, located some 60 miles north of the Big Apple on the west shore of the Hudson. Once his pulse had come down to normal levels again, he could not help to laugh at the situation. It had been fun, and after all he got the phone. Had he been the kind to reflect about his own behavior he might have detected a pattern that he usually followed - fuck up, run away from the mess, and ten have a laugh about it - but he was not so in his mind todays escapades were just another good story he could tell his friends about later. Glancing at his watch, also an acquisition who had a similar story behind it, he figured that he could just as well take a walk to the pick up point. He would be an hour early, but with nothing else to do and a new phone to pass the time with he didn't mind waiting. As he walked through the sparse hardwood forest he put his SIM card into the new phone and then threw his ancient Nokia away over the shoulder. No need for that piece of garbage anymore. He crossed Route 52 by foot, something that required either nerves or complete contempt of death. The highway separated the south part of town, where most of the rich people who just moved out here to afford bigger houses but still commuted to New York lived, from the forgotten and run down hell hole of Balmville that was his home north of the highway. Knowing this forest just as well as the inside of his own pocket, he strolled towards the deserted allotment gardens. The genius who set them up did not realize that the people in Balmville did not have the money nor the time or inclination to plant things and watch them grow, so by now nature had started to reclaim the land. He sat down in the grass with his back against a large stone. From there he could see the small and ugly concrete tool shed with a strangely reinforced metal door, but he would be hidden from anyone who happened to wander by this desolate place. The shed did in fact not contain any tools, but was a storage for the local delivery chain of cocaine in Newburgh. Some fancy lawyer named mr Attens ran it, and Daniel was but a small cog in the machinery, picking up merchandise from mr Attens here and selling it on the streets of Balmville hardly making any profit in the process. As he sat there and played with the games on his new phone, he heard someone approaching. Quickly he hid behind the stone, just peaking over the top. To his surprise he saw that it was Sheila, mr Attens daughter. Since the bureaucrat who drew the school districts had ignored all social realities on the ground and drawn a geometrically pleasing box with the highway in the middle they had gone to the same high school. The few times Daniel had attended English classes he had spent them sitting behind her admiring the curves of Camilla, Sheilas best friend, while killing the time chitchatting with some of his friends. What the fuck was she doing here now? His gut feeling telling him that this might be an important moment, he clicked around on the phone until he found the camera function and then started to record the scene without making his presence known to the girl.