THE LIGHTNING SNATCHER IN RECTO WHO HAS NO APOLOGY FOR STEALING A BAG, BUT WHEN HE ANSWERED A CELLPHONE CALL, HE USED HIS “STOLED WEALTH” TO PAY FOR A CHILD’S SURGERY THAT WAS NOT HIS IN A “TWIST OF FATE”

It’s six o’clock in the evening along Claro M. Recto Avenue. The traffic is like a parking lot. The air is a mixture of jeepney smoke, the smell of sewage, and the sweat of thousands of people rushing home.

In the middle of the crowd, Caloy is waiting. He is twenty years old, thin, sharp-eyed, and known as “Caloy Kidlat.” He can snatch your wallet before you can blink. He has no conscience. It’s just work. He calls it “strategy.”

Across from Isetann, he saw his target. A lady who looked confused, tightly clutching an old shoulder bag. She was crying as she walked, as if she was out of her mind.

“Easy money,” Caloy whispered.

Caloy went with the flow of people. When a noisy jeepney passed by, he moved.

SWIPE!

With a quick slash of the cutter on the strap and a tug, Caloy got the bag. He ran towards the dark alley of Avenida before the lady could scream.

“My bag! Help! It’s like you’re taking pity on me!” he heard the woman scream, but the noise of the city had already swallowed him up.

Caloy reached his hideout under the Quiapo bridge. Panting, he sat down on the cardboard.

“Let’s see how much the jackpot is,” Caloy grinned.

He opened the bag.

His smile disappeared.

No wallet. No money. No jewelry.

The contents of the bag were:

A tupperware of rice that was already stale.

A broken rosary.

Prescriptions for medicine.

An old keypad phone with a cracked screen.

And a thick envelope with the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) logo.

“Bwisit!” Caloy shouted. “Bad luck! I got trash!”

He was about to throw the bag into the river when the phone suddenly rang.

KRING! KRING!

Caloy stopped. The Caller ID read: “DOC RAMOS PGH – ANSWER PLS”.

Out of curiosity (and annoyance), Caloy answered the call. He didn’t say anything.

“Hello? Mrs. Santos?” a man’s voice on the other line. “Mrs. Santos, where are you? Angel is already in the Operating Room. The heart valve she needs has arrived. But the Admin said that a downpayment of Fifty Thousand Pesos (P50,000) is required within thirty minutes. If you can’t pay, we will give the valve to the next patient on the waiting list. Your child’s life depends on it. Mrs. Santos?”

Caloy stiffened.

Thirty minutes. Fifty thousand. The child’s life.

Caloy looked at the envelope. There was a photo of a little girl, maybe five years old. Bald, pale, but smiling while connected to tubes. The name: Angel Santos.

Caloy suddenly remembered his own sister who died of Dengue five years ago. She died because they didn’t have money to buy medicine. She died while he was holding her hand, promising to do something, but he failed.

“Mrs. Santos?” the doctor repeated.

“On my way,” Caloy replied in a voice that he tried to deepen.

He hung up the phone.

Page: SAY – Story Around You | Original story

Caloy stood up. He looked at a can of biscuits buried underground in the corner of his shack.

A hole.

He opened the can. Inside was his “Life Savings.” This was the money he had saved from five years of theft. Thousands of pesos from the strategy. His dream of a motorcycle to join Grab and change his life. Exactly P52,000.

He stared at the money. He stared at Angel’s photo.

“Oh, that’s right,” Caloy said softly as tears flowed down his face. “Why am I so unlucky today?”

He grabbed the money. He put it in Mrs. Santos’ bag.

Caloy ran.

This was not the run of a thief fleeing the police. This was the pace of someone chasing death.

Recto… Quezon Boulevard… Taft Avenue.

The traffic was motionless. The LRT was packed.

Caloy ran in the middle of the road. He jumped on the hood of the taxi that was blocking him. He squeezed between the buses.

“Hey! Are you going to commit suicide?!” the drivers honked.

He didn’t care. 20 minutes left.

He arrived at the PGH. He was panting. Sweaty. He looked like a rugby boy.

The guard stopped him in the lobby. “Hey! No hanging around here!”

“Stop!” Caloy shouted. “I’m going to pay!”

He went straight to the Cashier. The line was long.

“Emergency!” Caloy shouted. “Angel Santos! Downpayment!”

Because of his appearance, which looked like a holdup ready to hurt, people stepped aside.

Caloy dropped the bag on the counter. A thick bundle of money was brought out—20s, 50s, 100s, crumpled, stained with blood and sweat.

“Fifty Mil,” Caloy gasped. “For Angel Santos. Now.”

The Cashier was shocked. “S-Sir? How is your patient?”

“Nothing!” Caloy shouted. “Receipt! Quick!”

Because of

scared, the Cashier processed it immediately. Stamp. Paid.

“Okay, Sir. The OR has been called. The operation is continuing.”

Caloy’s shoulders slumped. The weight on his chest disappeared.

“The change…” said the Cashier, reaching for the two thousand.

“That’s yours. To buy the child fruit,” said Caloy.

He turned and walked out. He left the bag on the counter.

When he came out of the hospital door, he saw the woman he had robbed—Mrs. Santos. She was running in, crying, almost crawling on the cement, screaming “My child! I have no money! You should have mercy on me!”

They met.

Mrs. Santos didn’t recognize Caloy. To her, he was just a loiterer blocking the road. He even bumped into her in his haste.

“Bye! Bye!” Mrs. Santos shouted.

Caloy stepped aside. He watched the lady run to the Cashier.

He heard the Cashier shout: “Ma’am! Calm down! It’s paid! Someone already paid earlier! A man even left this bag of yours!”

Caloy saw Mrs. Santos fall to her knees. Hugging the bag. Crying with joy and gratitude. “Who?! Who paid?! Is he an angel?!”

Caloy smiled bitterly. He felt in his pocket. It was empty. His dream motorbike was gone. He was back to being a rat in Recto. Hungry. No money.

He took out a fortune cookie that was tightly wrapped. He lit it.

“Not an angel, Nay,” Caloy whispered into the air as he inhaled the smoke. “Just a snatcher.”

Caloy walked away into the darkness of Taft Avenue. He hadn’t gotten anything tonight. But for the first time in his entire life, he felt like he wasn’t a thief.

That night, Caloy slept on a cardboard box under a bridge, his stomach rumbling, but he slept soundly. Because he knew, in a room at PGH, there was a heart still beating because of him.

And that was the best thing he had ever experienced in his entire life—death, robbed by a victim.