The Visually Impaired Person

Disclaimer - I, Saya, did NOT write this story and I have nothing against the physically disabled. And I think this story does not intend to hurt the disabled either. This story perhaps involves evil people who happen to be disabled, but not any people who are evil on account of their disability, if you get my meaning.

This happened when I had just moved to a city and started a life of my own.
One late night I was walking home after a staff welcome party at the office.

The apartment where I lived stood in the middle of a quiet residential area and at night it was even quieter with hardly any people on the streets. I was quite scared as I was walking alone.

When at last my apartment came into view, I saw a woman walking down the street towards me. The woman walked with a noticeable stagger.

I didn't pay too much attention to her as she was a woman and I thought I would be safe. I was about to get inside my apartment when the woman bumped into a van that was parked in front of the entrance and fell right down on her face. When I looked at her closely she was wearing sunglasses and in her hand was a white stick.

I hurriedly ran to her help and asked if she was alright. She muttered something to the effect of, 'I'm fine,' in a quiet and inarticulate voice.

She seemed to be still in her twenties and also seemed visually impaired. I felt sorry for her because she was walking on her own in the middle of the night in such a condition.
I asked her, 'where are you heading to?'
The woman again muttered something like, 'I'm visiting a friend who lives in an apartment around here, but I lost my way.' And then she said, 'I don't know where I am right now. If you know this area can you help me to find my friend's house?'

I thought it was just natural to help visually-impaired people and said, 'OK.'
'Then please lend me your arm and we can go together, ' the suddenly-perky woman said, and we started walking together.

We walked arm in arm. The woman often asked me questions such as, 'what do you see now?' and she led the way by giving me orders such as, 'then we turn left here,' or 'turn right at the next corner.'

It was very dark around us.
At one point a car drove past us and the light from it fell on her face; I got a glimpse of her eyes behind the sunglasses and she was clearly watching my expression.

That definitely made me suspicious and I began to feel scared about the situation in which I found myself in (the woman firmly had her both arms entwined with my right arm, and I was holding a bag in my left hand).

But I thought to myself, what if she was really handicapped? And I felt guilty about being suspicious and in the end we walked for a good fifteen minutes.

Also the subjects she chose to talk about while we walked were really bizarre and freaky:
"The person I'm about to see is also handicapped," she said.
"He is still at primary school, and he has lost both his arms."
"He has been depressed for a long time, so I decided to knit him a jumper but I wasn't certain what to do with the arm parts."

Listening to her was the freakiest thing that I had ever experienced in my life and I was near to tears as I tried my best to respond to her.

The more we walked the darker and quieter the streets became.
I had even began to think about getting into a fight with her, if necessary, in order to get away, when she said:
'I think we are nearly there. Could you please tell me the apartment's name?'
I told her the name and she said, 'OK. I'm fine now. Thank you.'
She released me without problems.
Oh no! I knew I was wrong! I thought, ashamed of myself.

But as soon as I began to calm down I became suspicious of her again (how, for example, did she know which ways were right or wrong? ) It bothered me so much that I decided to see what she was going to do next from the corner of the street.

And in less than a minute I saw the same woman coming down the stairs of the apartment, with steady, light steps. So I had been right about her all along; she had played a prank on me.
I was going to make a complaint to her, when I saw another person coming down the stairs. The person was a man, about in his late twenties, very fat, and what's more, without arms.

The pair kept looking around them restlessly as if they were expecting someone; and they kept whispering to each other although I couldn't hear what they were saying.
Then all of a sudden the woman began to violently pull at the man's sweatshirt, almost as if she was trying to tear it apart!
The man tried to resist but in the end he got stripped of the clothes and went naked above the waist.
The sight of his naked armless shoulders and a sudden violent outburst of the woman shocked me into crying. It was all I could do not to scream.
I wanted to run away but my legs had already turned to jelly and I was also scared that they might see me and start chasing after me.

The armless man was rolling on the ground and screaming some incoherent words.
The woman then took out something that looked like a vacuum bottle(?) from her bag and started pouring a large amount of some liquid over the half-naked man.
Steam was coming out of the liquid which indicated that it was very hot, and the man let out a hair-raising scream, but no one in the neighbourhood was coming out to see what was going on.
I couldn't stand the fear any longer and ran away.

Fortunately no one came after me. I ran back into my apartment and locked myself in. I was teary and shaky for the whole of the rest of the evening.

I still wonder what it was that I saw...
Has anyone had a similar experience before? This happened six years ago.
There is more to this story, by the way. Would you like to hear it?

After a comment:
This happened at a much later date. About two years had passed since then and I had almost forgotten about it all. One day I was in a department store.
I was passing through a floor to get to the escalator, when I noticed a familiar figure.
I gave the person a quick glance as I walked by and it was the woman.
She wore the same clothes and the same sunglasses. There was no mistake.
She was not holding the white stick but this time one of her arms was missing (or that was how it looked to me).

The woman didn't seem like she had noticed me and she was standing with downcast eyes.
In front of her was a pram and she was trying to do something to the baby with her one arm.
The mother of the baby was looking at shelves and was unaware of what was happening.

I took it all in in one second and in a flash I was running down the escalator.
I dashed back home and I was again in tears.
I don't want to get involved with the woman in any way, ever again.
I was worried about the baby but I had never told a soul about it until now.

I get depressed whenever I think I might see her again somewhere in the future.

Comments

Woo! said…
What she do to the baby? :<
Dee said…
I... am a bit confused. o_o
Creepy story.
Catty said…
Eep...
Imma cheer myself up after this creepy story with a funny image.
http://i686.photobucket.com/albums/vv228/Arya_Val/Icon/Nom_Nom_by_Mr_Stamp.gif
OM NOM NOM.
矎B said…
Ideally the mother of the child should have been more attentive. :( I wonder if she caught what the strange woman was doing and told her off for messing with her baby?

It seems logical but at the same time... it would be really dangerous to mess around with a crazy woman like that!
Tahmnong said…
Intriguing, to say the least.

What a creepy situation! I hope the baby was okay o__O

Thanks again for your lovely translating!
Unknown said…
An interesting story, Ms. Saya. What is a pram? I'm unfamiliar with this. Thanks so much, as usual. I hope you're feeling better or feel better soon.
neu said…
Whoever the speaker is in this story... really, not even helping a little kid! : (
Thank you very much all of you for your comments!! :D

William - a pram is a baby carriage. The word is apparently short for perambulator and is used in British English only, from what I gather!
roanne said…
a pram?
roanne said…
oops, nevermind. thanks :)
I used to live in England for a while and that's why I prefer to use British English.
BTW if you don't know a word you can always google it. Although of course I am happy to explain it for you.
Anonymous said…
Ooh, very creepy!

Thank you for your time, Ms. Saya!
Anonymous said…
Hello.

A fine appraisal of humanity and its inability to act when confronted with the Unknown.

I am entertained.

Indeed.

I am most fascinated.
Catty said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Bryan said…
That was quite a freaky story. I want to know more, naturally, but of course the narrator had escaped... It leaves a lot open, and as long as we don't know the truth, our mind fills it in for us. And due to the nature of the story, it is natural to think of horrible things that could have happened.
Unknown said…
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Tani said…
I think the person telling the story could have faced off with te woman, and he seemed a bit sexist. But the traslating is awesome!! ^__^
Hi everyone!
alyciabaleesha - thank you too!:)

Mr.Welldone - I'm glad you like it! I wouldn't know what to do in such a situation either!

Catty - my dear girl, I know you don't mean it, but let's not say anything remotely unkind to other guests. Mr.Welldone has never done any harm.

Bryan - oh Bryan, I knew this kind of story would put you off!:P But yeah I wish I knew the truth too!

William - not a fan of Mr.Welldone? He's not a bad guy;he just has got his way of saying things.

Anyway I really don't think it's a good thing to say unkind things to others. I hope you understand.

Tani - the story-teller might be a woman herself, judging from the way she writes, although you can'te tell it in English!
Thank you very much, you have really boosted my confidence!:)

THANKS A LOT FOR YOUR COMMENTS!
It hurts me to have to do this, but I had to delete some of your comments.

But I hope you understand my policy:

NO BULLYING ON MY SITE!!!

I'm gonna to have to take a look at older comments later to see if there's any other unkind comment.(sigh)
Unknown said…
I hope to god this is a fictional story, because if this had the slightest once of truth, you should be ashamed of yourself for not going to the police. When someone sees and crime and does nothing, HE OR SHE IS JUST AS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CRIME. Ever hear of aiding and abetting a criminal? Nuff said..
Kitsune said…
hey Saya-san, i hope no bullies on your comment anymore..

wheew, its sure a long, inexplicable story.. i think they enjoying torturing people, i hope you're not bump with witches like that Saya-san :)
unicorn said…
Bit sad because she was not able to help the baby. But I still understand her because she just thought of her own self. At least, the woman didn't do anything bad to her.
Anonymous said…
could the liquid have beeen acid? maybe she accidentaly hurt herself with it too, and her arm ended up by bein useless or so hurt it had to me removed
or maybe she enjoyed hurting or making people disabled, who knows, she seems quite crazy anyways... but i also think i may be looking for a meaning which is not there, but, well, after all, who really cares?
thanks for your translations, Saya, they really get to be very interesting!
Assisi said…
Hi Saya; in your story, the vacuum bottle can also be called a thermos, it could've kept whatever liquid was inside boiling hot for at least a few hours.

Although I would think there would be a limit to the amount of heat a thermos could contain before radiating the heat to whoever's holding it and scalding them!