Half naked woman appeared at my campsite.
CW: Nudity/exposure, disturbing imagery involving genitals
When I was in my early 20s I took a trip away by myself to a caravan park in a well known, picturesque town. I pitched my tent, set up my fire pit, ate my dinner by the fire while watching the handmaids tale on my phone. It was the middle of winter and rugging up by the fire was lovely.
At some point I see a face come out from the dark over the fire I had made for myself. I was a little startled at first, and thought initially she was going to ask me to put my fire out or something. Instead, she was quite friendly and asked if she could come and warm herself by my fire.
I wasn’t really in the mood for a conversation at that time of night as I was about to wrap up for bed, but invited her to come over anyway as she seemed fine, she looked like she was in her 60s-70s.
She asked me about my car, which at the time was a classic model and we talked about that for a while, and how she drove one around when she was young in the 60s. The conversation at first was perfectly normal.
The first unusual thing I noticed was that she had a rolled cigarette which she kept re-lighting by sticking her arm in the fire. It didn’t seem to bother her at all, and she was moving quite slowly without recoiling from the heat.
I can’t remember exactly where the conversation went or when exactly it got weird, but at some point her eyes widened and locked in on mine, and she started ranting a bit. She tried to make me sing a tuneless song about the environment she made in the 60’s, and I seriously considered just singing it so she’d go away.
She told me that she had been institutionalised in a psychiatric hospital on multiple occasions, the most recent after she was found drawing pictures of penises being cut up with scissors. She spoke about how the police and her family were out to get her, deemed her a violent schizophrenic, and that every so often she gets injections from the doctor so that she can live outside the hospital.
I can’t remember what else she said but it was all pretty unsettling.
I guess because it was dark, I didn’t realise that all she was wearing was a thin hoodie and a towel, until the towel dropped leaving her naked from the waist down. She just said sorry and kept talking. I was seated and she came to stand pretty close to me.
She told me that she was starving to death, (she didn’t look like she was starving to death) I gave her some of my food. She, in her half naked state pulled me in for close hug and told me that I was her only friend in the world.
Eventually I told her I needed to go to bed, and she told me not to put out my fire so that she would keep standing by it. I really didn’t want her hanging around my campsite while I was sleeping, and I felt responsible for my campfire, so when she went to the bathroom in her cabin I quickly put the fire out and got into my tent hoping she wouldn’t come back. Because I didn’t want to run into her again in the night, I pissed into a Tupperware container instead of walking outside to the bathroom.
The next morning, I woke up to a group of peacocks around my tent, pecking at bits of bread and food which had been placed in a perfect circle around my tent. The caravan park is known for having peacocks.
I’m not sure exactly what I saw the next morning, but I have a feeling she was exposing herself to other campers from the porch of her cabin, which was just behind my tent site.
I left a message for the caretaker of the caravan park about the woman and how she was mentally ill, and being inappropriate. I packed up and left early that morning, not because I was scared of her, but I just couldn’t be bothered.
I feel sad for the woman, and I hope she eventually got the care she needed. But that doesn’t make the whole experience any less uncomfortable