I thought I might record this despite the fact that it has been three weeks since I started writing it. -3rd June

3 Weeks Ago (Same date as the entry)

Our house was broken into last night. Everyone was fast asleep. The first thing I saw when I was woken up, was Ayah's shaved head (he just came back from Umrah barely a couple of days). I saw Alang, standing on his left with her pink sweater on and her face covered, and Abi on Ayah's right, kneeling down beside Alang.....*treeeeet, pause, rewind*...did I say Alang twice? That was because the first Alang, was not Alang, and Abi was not Abi. They were robbers. One of them had taken Alang's pink sweatshirt as his own.

I was still in a groggy state when I first opened my eyes. But that was only for a few seconds or so. I was wide awake by the time one of them kneeled beside me, though I pretended that I was still in a semi slumber state. My movements were purposely clumsy and I was making incoherent sounds like someone muttering in their sleep. I could hear one of the guys, or maybe it was Ayah, telling me to take of my gold bracelet and necklace. I played the sleepy fool act because I knew at that time, there was hardly anything else I could do. Fighting back was not an option as there were three of them around us. Plus, they might have been holding my Ayah at a knife point for all I knew.

They had probably thought t hat I was a silly fool, who was so slow at taking off my necklace, that they took hold of it, and almost instantly I felt it dropped from me into their hands. It must have been cut off with something sharp for I didn’t feel any tension force on it. By that time, playing the sleeping fool was not going to work anymore. They also snipped off the necklace from my sister who was sleeping beside me (the real Alang). The three night-robbers were illuminated by the dim street lights. They didn’t dare to switch on the lights in the house. They then had us in sitting positions and pointed at us knives, showing gestures for us to hold up both hands in front of us. Ayah was softly saying, “Don’t hurt them, they won’t fight. Please don’t hurt them”. For me hearing Ayah, the stern figure in the house, knowing that he was powerless at that time to do anything to help us if these men had more on their mind than just burglary, really felt like I could punch the daylights out of these evil people. But knowing that it was not just me that I had to look after, I kept my head down, and held my hands out. They tied with what I saw later were electric cables they had cut from our electrical appliances around the house. Bast*rds.

Threatening us with knives (kitchen knives they took from our house), they forced us upstairs into the master bedroom. What really threw me off as they led us upstairs was their horrid stench. They smelled like they haven’t even heard of the existence of water and soap. I was more angered than scared at the fact that our house was blatantly violated by presence of uninvited ‘guests’. As I entered my parents room, I saw Ibu huddled with Abi on the bed. Amah was on the floor at the foot of the bed. All with their hands tied. Alang was sat beside Amah, as I took my place beside Alang.

There were two others waiting upstairs. These people had their face covered with cloths. These two guarded us in the room, while the other two went out and probably were searching for other items in the house.

It was the longest 20 minutes of my life. They didn’t pace in front of us. The ones guarding, were as still as statues. Though every time I moved my hands to scratch my face, they made jerking movements as if I had some concealed movements of attack. Every other minute, one of the other two would come in, whisper to ones in the room. They would shake their heads and then continue searching. Ibu’s room was in a mess, with things strewn across the floor.

During that period, the period of waiting for what would come next, my heart rate rose and it felt like my heart was beating its way out of my chest. In my head, various scenarios played. Unmentionables such as violating the women of the house, touched base in my head more than once, and every time, I would huddle closer to Alang, and fearing for Ibu. Whenever one of them step just a bit closer than they had been, I would inwardly flinch and build up tension inside myself. It was almost like I was a coil of spring that was just waiting for release. I recited the three Quls and Ayatul Kursi, more to calm myself. I could hear Ibu doing the same. It was not easy to build calm inside. My mind was still racing. About police suddenly coming, or our neighbours banging on our doors, or even the robbers suddenly falling down the stairs or something. It was really, and I can honestly say it, a stressful situation.

And then suddenly, just like some sort of change of mood, they grouped together, and headed for the door. I could hear Ayah asking them, “Dah?” And as if they had suddenly acquired manners, they put their hands up, as if in a gesture of a small wave, saying, “Yes”.

Dumbfounded by the sudden politeness of these evil people.

We waited for about 5 minutes, just to make sure they were indeed gone, and not waiting to pounce on us again. Ayah got up, and untied the knots on his hands. He proceeded to untie everyone else. We all got down, switching on all the lights as we go by. Ayah dialed 999 as the rest of us went through the house. The kitchen was in a mess. They ate all the arab rice Ibu had cooked for dinner. They ransacked our larder and took my instant noodles. I was absolutely mad at them for that. Amah and Abi woefully cried at their lost handphones (their only valuable possession). It was then that we realized that AdikYoh was not amongst us. Abi went to wake her up. It seems that she was spared. Probably because she was sleeping like a log.

They had taken all cash, even the one ringgit notes in my purse (I had 3 ringgit in there), all our watches, all handphones and all valuable jewellery we had on us. I searched for my handbag, but could not find it. I was ready to really cry at the fact I would have to go to all sorts of agencies to get all my documentations back. As I was searching for the number of my bank, Ibu cried out telling me that my hand bag was outside, with all its contents thrown haphazardly on the ground. They must have taken that last, and unfortunately for me, my hand phone was in there that night. So that was gone too. I was glad our laptops weren’t taken. They must have been on foot, and that would have proven to be too heavy to take and run in the palm plantation behind our house.

It was exhausting. But we couldn’t sleep. Despite the clock showed that it was close to 4am. My brothers had their midterms that morning, but nobody could really go back to be after all that. Ibu asked us to go to sleep, but I just still was trying to get it into my head that we had just been robbed. Robbed at knifepoint, in our own homes. Tied up and grouped together.

All of us then pieced our stories together. It seemed that the robbers had come in through the kitchen doors. They had gone up using the back stairs and pounced upon Abi first, then Amah. They had Amah knocked on the master bedroom, asking Ayah to open up the door. Ayah did not suspect anything, and straight away jumped off bed and opened the door. He was quick to realize that they were actually in danger. He let out a shout, half closing the door. But he realized that may be a wrong decision considering that Amah and Abi were in the hands of the robbers. At the same time, Alang and I were sleeping downstairs, just near the staircase. Alang had heard Ayah’s shout. Thinking that Ayah might be in trouble, she crept up the stairs, inching up slowly. Unfortunately for her, one of the robbers saw her. And that brought us to the moment where they came down and took us upstairs along with them.

The event shook me up. In a way, I accept it as a wake-up call to not take things for granted. Theoretically, I have known this, but it is knowledge that I had also taken for granted and not really understand it fully. And it is not just our safety, but for everything else as well. Anything could have happened in the hands of those people. I have not done everything I had wanted to do in life, and to be in a position where they could have easily turned bad, hit me hard. There is just so much that we could do, and then say, “oh alright, I promise I’ll do it better tomorrow”, or that “I’ll give up doing this bad thing tomorrow and turn over a new leaf then”. It brought the fact that life and death is just a switch away. An invisible switch, flicked by invisible hands, in an invisible room. How can I live in the kind of life where I put off things that needs to be done now, when life’s intervention have strongly showed me that situations can change in an instance? A wake-up call indeed.

I then ask myself, how can there be such people in this world. I mean, I know that other people around the world have faced far worse situations than the ones we were in, but to be confronted face to face with such a thing, still is a bit hard for me to digest. Even now, I ask myself, had it really happened. I did not need much convincing on that with the fact that getting into bed and closing my eyes at night are never the same.