Interesting People: See No Evil, Hear No Evil

Already a celebrity in 1895, the young Helen Keller is an influential, controversial figure in the United States.

Breaking away from her parents, Helen moved to New York city with her companion Anne Sullivan at the age of 11. Already a celebrity due to her amazing development despite physical adversity, Helen was a media darling. Pulitzer saturated the market with stories of the "Child born in darkness," permitting Helen and Anne to live comfortably in the capitol city on residual income alone.

Unfortunately, in 1892 Anne Sullivan died during a labor riot outside the capitol, a collateral casualty of strikebreakers trying to suppress a worker's demonstration outside Rockefeller Center. The loss of her companion tortured young Helen, and she fled to the only other group that suffered as much as her in that springtime conflict - the Socialist Workers Group of America.

Now, Ms. Keller is both spokesperson and mascot for the worker's movement, and can always be found at the shoulder of Eugene V. Debs, the movement's leader. With Deb's elocution and Keller's pitiably story, they have increased the membership of the movement fourfold in the last three years.

Helen has one other, much darker, secret though. Since she suffered her crippling illness in 1881, Ms. Keller has been cut off from the sights and sounds of the world, living literally in silent darkness.

Into that darkness, a things found its home. A cruel, capricious thing, which whispered to Helen when none others could. Over the years, this spirit has become one of the foremost influences into Helen's life. Indeed, it was likely the spirit that orchestrated the murder of Anne Sullivan, in order to foster hatred and loneliness in Helen, and to drive her to an upcoming political force.

Known to Helen as either "the Phantom" or "the Dark Man," the spirit has recently become strong enough to act through her, directing her actions to its whims. Whether it is a solitary creature, or one that follows the guidance of something more malevolent, has yet to be determined.