Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-27932605-20170506162214

Japan, 1973

I saw a girl dressed in faded pink. She was wearing our uniform, only ragged and stained. Her face was covered by her short, dangling, brown hair. Behind a birch tree, she sat down on a pile of twigs and fallen autumn leaves. She looked like the fourth-grader from my sister's school, the one who she was the closest to. I was walking home from school that night, about 8:00pm. I wondered why she was outside, at the time so I approached her, then I gently pat on her hanging shoulder. "Hello, why are you still awake at this time? Don't you have school tomorrow?", I asked. She didn't reply, so I asked again. "I think it's best for you to go home. Would you want me to accompany you as you go?" Then, there was a deep, unnerving silence. The honks from traffic near the neighborhood suddenly died and the chirps of the Japanese night heron stopped conspicuously. There was no one around us. She raised her pale hand and slowly fixed her hair, to show her face, as she eerily turns her head towards me. I saw her hand. She had blue bruises and her veins were very visibly shown. Suddenly, stains of brown and burgundy spilled somehow beneath her dress. Then the punging smell of rotten flesh filled the surroundings. The odor was hideous, and the child's face deformed. I knew that the happening was definitely not normal. As I was about to back away from the child, she violently grabbed my head, and put it to her chapped lips. I was urging to get out from her grip. I felt the pressure in my temples as I screamed in stinging pain. She then whispered to my ears in a rough, strangled voice, "Teacher, teacher." I felt mucus and tears streaming down her lips as they touch my ear. She let me go. I ran home to my old apartment, living with no one else. It was terrifying to walk alone that night after what happened and to imagine sleeping with nobody but the memory of being strangled by a corpse was frightening. As I walk, flashes of her face interrupted my vision. I wanted to collapse on the pavement out of fear, surrounded by nobody. I did not think straight. I felt naked and cold although I was definitely not. I lost all recent memories as I walked. I turned my head back to her and saw a blue van. The van raced to my direction, unwary of me walking. I called the driver's attention, asking for help and warning him so that I may not get hit. The driver which appeared to be a man didn't even honk in reply and continued to ram his van towards me. I dragged my limp body out of the road, scared to get hit. He drove past me and continued, then he turned left, to a forest of Japanese white birch. I was heading towards any near house around the neighborhood, to knock and ask for help. But suddenly, something pulled me. It took me to where the van headed. I was still walking but I did not control where I was going. My legs were shaking, they were rapid. I urged to take control but everytime I tried to take my leg to the opposite direction, to the point of using my hands to carry them, they were being bruised and somehow, lashed. I had to follow. I let go. I simply let go to where my life will take me at that moment. I completely lost my will to go on and fight. I thought about my family, especially my little sister. I was being brought to the forest and saw the blue van, now on fire, crashed on a tree. I saw an old hairy man, from his 40s, only wearing a shirt. He was not wearing any undergarments. He carried the girl, but naked. She was still severely bruised. He raped her, and now he is going to bury her. I felt remorse for the child as I helplessly watched him bring the child. I couldn't scream, nor move. I was forced to watch. He put her to the ground. Then beside her broken body, he took a shovel and dug a plot. He took her body as her shoulder dangled and hung from a thin cartilage. Both her knees were very wounded and bent. He placed her body on the plot and I simply cried in disgust of what the man had done to the child. I was let go and I ran home, not to my apartment, but to my parent's house, where my baby sister lives. I chose to forget everything that happened. I did not tell the story even to my parents, my younger sister, no one. I kept it to myself. That's why I am writing it today so I can somehow remove this weight that I am carrying. About 2 months later, it was my first day of school. I entered my classroom. I saw the man, who raped the child, as my teacher and he grinned at me.

(This laptop document led the police to the succesful trace of the rapist who murdered two women, 1975, which were both underage. This document was translated from Japanese.) 