Thread by @GruaAbuseArkive, 2001. It was feared that USA might attack Pakistan. Many families withdrew [...]

2001. It was feared that USA might attack Pakistan. Many families withdrew money, jewelry, belongings out of bank lockers. So did mine. November 2001... the 12th or something (don& #39;t remember). Many armed men barge into our house at 3am, suspicious activity was going on for months

My mind, I realize, takes time to grasp such reality. Took me a while to figure. But we all immediately cooperated. They went quickly for the place where parents had stored all my jewelry. Brother gasped: "Oh shoot! If I knew we had this much, I& #39;d have chosen a better college."

Odd, complex night. I have a fiction/nonfiction writer in me. I often want to unpack these things in poetic prose. I want to share the slow-motion horror and the comical paradoxes of speaking amicably to folks holding guns at you, taking your parents& #39; earnings.

Crazy things from the night: (We were me, our mom and my brothers. I, eldest sibling, 22. To graduate a year later. To be robbed before graduation meant I had a poor start in the job market, the memory of which is what started this thread.)

1. We accepted our fate quickly. A bit toooo quickly, the robbers seem to have felt ashamed after a while. They began giving explanations and also, of course, said sorry.
2. Never thought about emotional wellness then but later figured I got cough due to anxiety. So I had a fit.

So I asked them: "Can you get me water?"
"Yes", they said.
"OK just heat it up a little because I& #39;m coughing."
"OK, OK", they said, and heated water for me.
Extended family who later invited us to another town for Eid to console us asked me in amazement.
I didn& #39;t find it odd!

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3. They found so much cash and jewelry they didn& #39;t take the TVs or such. The car was taken but returnes; they said they will leave it somewhere. We tried to protect a beloved old Rolex once gifted to our dad by a Saudi-worker brother in the 1980s by pretending it was fake. They

took it but I later felt bad about lying. It didn& #39;t feel good. Of course I regretted that our father& #39;s watch was taken. He was transferred to another station at that time for work; his watch was in store. Later his brother gifted him another Rolex WHICH DISAPPEARED WITHIN MINUTES

FROM HIS SIDE... sparking both an interrogation with a small cousin kid susprcted of having played with it and thrown or hidden it... and also, fears of the supernatural.
During that time such intense calamities visited our household that I am still shaken to think of it.

4. The robbery took place during my maternal uncle having contracted cancer. He was diagnosed in October and died later in February 2002. He was often at our place. During the day before robbery took place at night, our aunt, his sister, removed him and took him to his house.

She just wanted to go home, she said. (They shuttled b/w the hospital which was near our house, our house, and their house which was faaaaaar away in a then still-deserted Gulshan e Maymaar.) This spared her from being robbed, she kept money in a belt for uncle& #39;s sudden expenses.

5. Far away in another city my father had a dream that some men were sweeping our house. He woke up in panic and prayed... he feared the dream was about our uncle dying. Father was informed around 8am, arrived later by flight. His hair turned white overnight.

6. So. I& #39;ll continue... with what prompted this thread: the fact that 1.5 years aftet the event, and .5 years after my graduation, I went to apply for a job in Geo. They were very impressed but now they wanted to hard negotiate salary. When I didn& #39;t bargain or protest, man said:

"You don& #39;t look like you need the money!"

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