At Stephen’s Resort.
At 4 PM, irregular visitors began to arrive. The staff members were surprised to see such a group of people who were not qualified to visit the resort. They were poorly dressed and famished. Besides, they were unschooled and could not speak comprehensible English. The resort manager and his colleagues observed them as they trooped in with trepidation.
“What are they looking for?” The manager asked one of the staff members.
“I wouldn’t know. This is my first time seeing them.”
Then, the resort manager walked up to one of the visitors, looking down on his nose at him.
“How may we help you, please?” The manager dared to ask and waited for a response.
To his dismay, the visitor did not respond nor cast a glance at him. After waiting for a few minutes, he moved over to another visitor and got the same treatment. Now, he was lost on the next thing to do.
At that point, the number of visitors had multiplied and outnumbered the staff members.
However, after the visitors waited for thirty minutes and did not get what they hoped to get, they began to throw a tantrum.
“Where is our payment? We need our money.”
For the first time, the staff members learned that these irregular visitors were the people that the government handled with care and must not be offended. Some of them were the less privileged members of the society, people living with disabilities, buskers, and beggars.
The first person who the manager asked a question was living with hearing and speech disabilities, while the second person had just speech disability.
Then, Stephen was at the home of his new-found lover for a weekend blast. The staff members could not explain anything to the uninvited guests, nor did they have any idea of the payment they were referring to.
Under the inimical prevailing circumstances, the only person who could stand in the place of the Boss was Jude, his hitman. Unknown to them, he had been starving since they returned from the registry the previous day.
While he was drowning with despair and helplessness, the manager rushed into the underground and called out, screaming and scampering, “Jude.”
The surge from the manager’s voice jolted him up from his seat. He was feeble and tired but the fear of the unknown helped him to muster strength.
“Yes, Manager?” He answered and was surprised that he was already standing in front of him with the other staff member.
“Jude, kindly come. I don’t understand what these people are saying.”
“Which people?” he asked him anxiously.
“Just come with me,” he pleaded.
Now, Jude followed him obediently but before they could get to the park, they began to hear the uninvited guests clamoring for attention.
“Give us our money. You are taking advantage of us.”
Then, Jude turned and looked at the manager and asked, “Which payment are they talking about?”
“I wish I knew. Maybe the Boss had promised to give them some money?”
Subsequently, Jude saw that as an opportunity to escape. He took the only decision that seemed to make sense to the resort manager.
“Listen carefully, Manager. The Boss is not around, and we have to act fast.”
“Yes,” the scared Manager answered and Jude continued.
“Gather all your staff members and hide in the underground. I will disguise myself like one of them and slip into their midst. That is the only way I can get the true picture of what is going on.”
“It is okay. I will do that.” The Manager accepted.
Subsequently, Jude walked back to the underground and disguised by ruffling his hair and making it look disheveled. Then, he removed the shirt that he wore to the court the previous day and put on an untidy one. Afterward, he picked up his phone, which was his only property apart from his clothes, put it in his pocket, and began to navigate his way to the park through another route.
Then, he met two angry visitors who were holding their backpacks on that route too. From all indications, they were more anxious than others and they were chanting louder.
“We are not going to leave unless we get our money.”
The chanting increased as the number of people multiplied before Jude appeared at the park. Now, his voice became the loudest.
“Yes. We are not going to leave. We need our money.”
One of the visitors holding a knapsack beside him agreed with him.
“Yes. The resort owner is a rogue. The government had given him our money to give to us but he is out to cheat us,” another visitor with a backpack concurred immediately.
“Yes, I saw the beggars that had collected theirs yesterday, five hundred pounds each.”
Then, Jude played along, “Wow! Five hundred? That is good. They must be joking, we need our money. Otherwise, we are not going to let them have fresh air.”
At that juncture, Jude had blended with the angry visitors, and his escape was certain.
After integrating with the angry visitors, he kept on shouting. He increased the tempo while he was slipping into the crowd. Suddenly, the two angry visitors with the backpacks, who were at different ends of the resort, began to scream, “Run for your lives. They had planted an explosive. They want to kill all of us.”
At that moment, the beggars, the less privileged, the buskers, and the people living with disabilities began to re-chant the information they hardly knew the source as they ran. The deaf among them began to run too, even though it wasn’t clear to them why they were running. The blinds held their aid hands tightly as they ran.
Now, the news of the explosive had spread among the two thousand uninvited guests. Nevertheless, both patronizers and the gamblers at the resort were not left out. The staff members who were hiding in the underground heard the warning too and ran out, scrambling to any escape routes.
Nevertheless, the chanting was helpful. It helped them to escape successfully and averted the stampede.