We learned a great deal from the old man.
Including some things about his past.
He had lost his sight when he was young, in a fire his own father had started.
His father had been a man who drank, gambled, and visited prostitutes. Once, after drinking too much, he went on a drunken rampage and set the house on fire. The blaze had been so fierce that the old man and his mother had barely escaped alive.
His father had burned to death on the spot. Although the old man had survived, the fire had disfigured him, burning away half his face and destroying one of his eyes.
His other eye could still see at the time, but it had been damaged by the smoke. His family had been too poor to afford hospital treatment, and before long, that eye had gone blind too.
Back then, he had only been in his early twenties, the village's only university student.
A university education had carried so much weight in those days. He could have had a limitless future, only for his own father to destroy it all.
Afterward, his mother had looked after him until he was in his forties. Then she had passed away too, and from that point on, he had lived alone, making a living by collecting garbage.
He had lived here alone and blind for nearly thirty years.
He had no friends or family, and even the neighbors nearby were unwilling to exchange more than a few words with him.
His face was simply too frightening. Sometimes, just walking along the road was enough to make passing children cry.
So he rarely went out during the day. Only at night, once everyone else had gone home to sleep, would he go out for a walk and