Illustration by Øivind Hovland
Not long ago I cycled back from northwest central London on a hired bike. I’d just dropped it at a docking station behind Canada House and was about to walk across Trafalgar Square back to St. Martin’s church. I got out my phone to text a thank you to the friend who’d just treated me to a day out at Lord’s Cricket Ground.
Suddenly from behind me a hand appeared and swooped my phone out of my grasp. The hand belonged to a teenager on an electric bike. In seconds, as I began to perceive what had happened, my assailant sped far away from me. I soon saw my predicament: the thief had my whole digital identity, plus my credit cards and driver’s license. I pathetically roared my horror and outrage.
But then two extraordinary things happened. As I uselessly made middle-aged plodding chase, a woman 50 yards away, who’d somehow seen the incident, faced the thief’s bike, made herself wide like a star, stood in his way and shouted, “Stop it and drop it!” I was so dazed I scarcely realized what was happening. But when I turned around, a small boy was running toward me with my phone. I received it dumbfounded and dazed, like an audience taking back the ace of spades during a card trick. I thanked the boy, shaking his palm with my still-trembling hand. Only then did I realize that the cyclist had dropped the phone just as the woman had told him to. I looked around to thank her, but she was gone. The whole event took 20 seconds.
