Writer's Workshop - Lost... and Never to be Found...

For this week's Writer's Workshop, I'm choosing this prompt:

"2.) What did you once lose? Write about your search to find it again."

This happened 2 years ago, one night after I finished having dinner with an ex-colleague of mine near my office. She has offered to fetch me home cos my home is about 10 minutes away from my office area. So, we were walking on this small road and chatting like normal. It was about 9pm at the time. We didn't walked in the shop lots alley as they were dark and we thought it's better to walk near the streetlights.

Suddenly, a white car stopped next to me (oh well, they didn't stop entirely, more like moving real slow cos' my ex-colleague and I were still walking on) so anyway, this guy sitting at the front passenger side asked me whether I know the direction to this apartment area. I looked at my ex-colleague, she shook her head, so I told them we didn't know. Then they continued and drove off.

So, we continued walking and I remembered clearly telling my ex-colleague that I've never heard of the apartment name before when I suddenly felt something snapped on my right shoulder. With my right hand, I slowly massaged my shoulder and that's when I realized it...

I HAVE JUST BEEN SNATCHED.

My freaking handbag which I hold tightly at my right shoulder with my left hand clutching it had just been SNATCHED. I always make it a point to make a cross sort of like crossing my arms in order to hold on to my handbag tight and yet, I was snatched. The snapped I felt earlier on my right shoulder was actually the handbag strap which apparently was cut before the thief snatched it away.

It couldn't possibly be grabbed on the fly as my handbag straps was pretty strong, so the only way I can think of is somehow the thief managed to quietly cut the strap while I was distracted with that man asking me the directions to the apartment.

Words cannot describe my feelings as I see the thieves on the motorcycle riding away (fast speed but as if nothing happened). Could only see the back but not the plate number of the bike and as we were wearing high heels, we rushed to my ex-colleagues car (just few cars away!) and immediately tried our luck in chasing after the thieves. Unfortunately the road was cramped up with cars on their way out of the area and the thieves got a better advantage since they can just easily corner their way out of the traffic.

You know the worst part of this incident? The police station was just at the end of the shoplot, about 30 metres away from where I was snatched. After circling the few shop lots area around there, we head to the police station and lodged a report. When we reached the police station, I asked my ex-colleague to lend me her handphone so that I can call my hubby and you know what? I forgot his number. In my moments of panic and sadness, I totally forgot his number. It took me a while to remember back and when I managed to get to him, he thought I was joking... until I started crying. My ex-colleague then took over the call and told him what happened and asked him to come over.

Hubby arrived shortly. We waited for a while for my turn to lodge the report. In the meantime, I managed to get my other colleague's help (he was still at work running system back ups for the day) to surf the Net and get me all the related bank contact details. I called a few banks and instructed them to immediately disabled my credit cards and ATM facility. Then I called my mobile operator to deactivate my SIM card.

I then had to relate back the incident to the police officer and in my missing items report, I noted down my less than 2 months old Nokia handphone was in my handbag along with my house keys, my personal ID, driver's license, credit cards, ATM cards, staff card, $300 cash which I just withdrew during lunch etc etc.

I was super sad and cried because I realised the videos and pictures I took during the last few weeks of my parents lives and their funeral services... all are in the hand phone. At that point, I cursed at the thieves. I know its wrong (and totally un-Christian) to curse but seriously at that point, I wished the thieves dead.

But then hubby reminded me that the original videos and pictures were still in my old phone. Oh thank God! From then, I just wished the thieves seriously needed to use my money and belongings to save their terminally sick or dying family members... and I still wanted them to have stomach flu and have the worst diarrhoea of their lives or something. Argh... I was so mad at them!
For months after the incident, I got the shivers whenever I hear motorcycle sound and when our dog suddenly barks for long (our dog only barks at strangers, cats or birds) I was scared the thieves somehow got the courage to sneak to our house since they have my house keys. Although we immediately change all our locks to a new set, the damage has been done. I was traumatized. To think I had to go through all the renewal and cancellation procedures for my personal ID, banking details, mobile details, staff cards, etc etc... sigh..

I do sometime look at the back lanes and alleys whenever I happened to be around my office area, hoping I might one day see my handbag thrown in the ditch or something but nope... to this date, there has not been any news on the thieves or my missing handbag. It was lost, and never to be found again...