Two guys in a bike sprinted pass us. It slowed, made a U-turn. One guy stepped down and walked towards us. Mom was terrified.

I think I was five, barely the height of mom's waist. Mom didn't work at the time, she enjoyed taking trips to Petaling Street.

We would take what felt like a 15-minute walk from the house to the bus stop, take a ride to city centre and walk some more. She would shop and eat, sometimes for acupunture. On the way back I fall asleep in the bus on her lap.

That day it was the afternoon, dad was out working. We were walking on the street where we lived towards the nearest bus stop.

Somehow there were rumors about security issues in this part of town. The muggers found us that day.

They weren't on a cheap motorbike, it's a sports-grade model I suppose. I'm sure they were proud. In fact I can't even tell what race they were. They had helmet on and I was still race-blind.

The driver was circling his bike on the street. As a five year-old it looked humongous to me.

The main bogeyman though was the one approaching mom and me. Mom was screaming at the top of her lung. He wanted mom's handbag bad. She struggled, not letting him have it.

This was threatening enough for me that I didn't know what I remember. I was either crying, screaming or both. She coulda been trying to fight him off at this point. She might even have injured herself doing so.

The mugger got the her bag, she didn't stand a chance. He ran back to his bike, the two rode off. Amazingly mom was still adamant, she's a fighter. As the bike was moving, she was still holding on the her bike and running along with it.

That didn't last long. Eventually she lost them, she walked back to me from quite a distance away. I was out of breath from crying. Neighbors started coming out of their houses.

This happened a one house away from a neighbor we knew quite well. The wife's name was Connie; I forgot the husband's name but he was a retired policeman. Either one of them came out and took care of us.

Now that mom's bag is gone, we had no keys to our house. So we were resting in Connie's living room. Calls were made to various places I suppose.

I don't remember much here. I'm not sure how mom felt at this time. I wonder if she was primarily angry, resentful or regretful.

The one thing I'm sure about was that I was out of control with my crying. It was as if the attack didn't stop when the muggers left. The whole encounter was still replaying in my head in loops, causing the same reaction for hours.

Dad showed up some time later, my crying didn't stop.

Quite a bit was lost from this snatching, among them their wedding rings. Both of their rings, the old fashion kind with big ass jade rock in the middle. It's weird that she carried them both in the bag to begin with. I'm not sure how many more weird shit was in the bag.

Dad wasn't the emphathetic kind. He was going on about mom mismanaged this and lost so much.

Ever since this episode, I started to refer to this event as the most terrifying thing that has ever happened to me. It's still true, nothing has topped it since.

I'm not sure how much this impacted my psychological make up. I didn't think much of it since then, but now I suspect it might be quite foundational. It could explain why I primarily see a dark world and consider people as default-threat than default-friend.

I wonder how much this affected mom. She has never mentioned it ever since I guess so not much.

That wasn't our last trip out. I'm sure she got wiser with logistics. It may be a dark world but she didn't let that pollute her lens of the world.

Her continued to crave venturing outdoor even when she got senile from dementia. I'm glad she wasn't bedridden for too long towards the end.