JULY 30 — ‘Twas the middle of the night with the eight came a-speeding;

Circling my vehicle they began negotiating;

What to take? Who first? Oh let’s rob ‘em two;

And off we can go to the mamak near you.

No one stirred, every looked, at the two helpless women;

In shock they all stood as they watched it all happen;

Frozen on our feet as none of us moved;

As I watched the receding eight and said “What’s up, dude?”

No more phones, no more keys, her wallet gone;

We wondered what to do next about this deed so wrong;

Off to the police we went to seek assistance;

Report lodged, three months gone, not one of them called us;

I sit at home alone with four walls for protection;

Afraid to venture out at night for fear of a same situation;

In God I trust that they will one day face retribution;

But now I spend my night time in often quiet isolation;

I pray, my friend, you will never come to see;

Such an event that steals your security;

But if one day this episode should fall upon thee;

With a friend, I hope, you have left your house key.

I have chosen to inject some sordid humour into a humourless experience. Indeed, many times I have put pen to paper to release this experience into words but I could not. 

The eight boys who robbed me took more than my BlackBerry (sob!) and my other belongings. They stripped me of easy laughter in a new environment, of my passion for word and song, and most profound, my sense of security — propelling me into a forced state of semi-reclusivity with reruns of “Boston Legal” for company.

Looking over the past three months, I am not too surprised that at no point since the incident was I angry. Afraid? Yes. Depressed? Surely. But angry? No. I had simply resigned to the fact that I was finally a sad statistic. 

Too many people I know have been robbed at knife point or survived a snatch theft. I believe it’s a cause for worry that when 10 women are having a conversation one evening, they share that a mother, sister, colleague or they themselves have faced a similar situation. 

And it’s a cause for panic when the next day another group of women tell me the same thing.

Everyone has stories. And if that does not tell you these are troubled times, I don’t know what will. 

As for me, I’m thinking of buying a big-ass truck.

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.