「故事·听力」I Was Stalked By A Mysterious Woman

I Was Stalked By A Mysterious Woman

Hi, this is Karla. She wants to tell you a story that is really hard for her to talk about. It’s about how one encounter and one conversation can plunge your life into chaos.

What is there for Karla to say about herself? She’s a teenager who lives in a big city. She has no siblings and only talks to her parents and friends. She does have a lot of friends, though. In a city with millions of people, you could be a loner only if you really wanted to. She doesn’t like staying home, and after school she always hang outs with friends, no matter where: in the central park, in coffee shops, in malls. She likes hanging out and has never been scared of crowded places, even when she was a kid.

Around that time, she once got lost in a shopping mall. Well, she wasn't really lost, she was just following a cotton candy cart. Her mom spent a lot of time looking for her, and when she finally found Karla she cried and even yelled at her. That might have been the only time that her parents have ever been that angry with her; usually they’re very kind and tender. But that day her mom got really scared – she thought her daughter had been kidnapped.

So she’s an ordinary teenage girl, and now you're probably thinking – what kind of a story is she going to tell us? It's actually a story about stalking and kidnapping. At least, the kidnapping of her serene personality.

Well, she spent a lot of time in crowded places, and she can’t really say when it all began. People don't really remember specific faces in crowds; all of them sort of merge into a single image. Like many other people, Karla seldom looks at people passing by or wonders who’s sitting at the next table in a coffee shop, and the chances are other people don’t care about her in the same way.

How can she explain what she sensed that day? She was sitting in a coffee shop with her friends, eating a gigantic portion of ice cream. And she was being WATCHED! She looked behind her and caught the eye of a middle-aged woman. She had a kindbut unremarkable face, modest and clean clothes, no makeup or jewelry. The only noticeable thing was her long old-fashioned braid – one of her girlfriends giggled about her ridiculous hairdo. At that very moment for some reason Karla felt veryuncomfortable, but she turned back to her ice cream and forgot all about it.

But soon after she was reminded of what had happened. This time she was alone sitting in her favorite park, completely absorbed in reading about her favorite heroes’ adventures, when suddenly she glanced up from her book. A nearby bench was occupied by the same woman! She still looked inconspicuous, but she recognized the braid curled around her head. The woman was looking straight at her, but when she noticed that Karla had seen her, she looked a bit embarrassed and soon left, abruptly. She was a little surprised, but, after all, it was the city’s central park. If there was any place in the world where you might meet a stranger for the second time, it's probably right there!

But the situation kept repeating itself. Karla began to notice that DAMN braid here and there in the crowds of people that surrounded her! Or, was it just her imagination? She was confused; she didn’t understand how this could happen, but she saw this woman everywhere – at the park, in the coffee shop, at the mall, and even walking by her school gates! WHAT WAS SHE SUPPOSED TO THINK?!

And then she was REALLY scared when she saw her going down the stairs of her own building. She quickly ducked down when she saw her, but IT WAS DEFINITELY HER! She didn't dare talk to her and instead hid behind a door. If it were a man, shewould have already called the police by now! But she didn’t want to look stupid if she was mistaken. She started looking for a logical explanation behind these bizarre encounters. Karla lives in a high-rise and there’s no way she could know the faces of all of her neighbors. And the encounters in the city could've been no more than a coincidence.

She met the stranger with the braid one more time – on a narrow side street where she usually goes to dump the garbage. It looked like she’d been waiting for her there. She couldn’t stand it anymore, and threw the garbage bag straight at her. She dodged it and kept staring at her in silence, and Karla started yelling at her: “What do you need from me? I'm calling the police!” The woman shook her head and said: “Oh my God, no. Karla, please! I’m your mother!” She was shocked and speechless. She screamed at her that she was lying and ran home. But before doing so, for some reason, she accepted a piece of paper from her with a phone number.