quite a following

People have been following me for several years now. At first I was frightened--who wouldn't be? But nobody I knew was willing to help. My family sent me to several doctors, who all tried to convince me that these were just paranoid delusions--but I knew better. Eventually I started pretending I didn't notice or care anymore, mostly to keep my family from sending me to another doctor, but also hoping perhaps they'd go away. They didn't. If anything, they doubled their surveillance.

I spent some time trying to lose them, both in the city and out of it. I went on spontaneous vacations, jumped on unplanned buses, even moved to different towns several times, but to no avail. My followers were still there, still watching. The part that vexed me most is they weren't trying to hide, not really. Sometimes they'd nod at me when they caught me looking. But it had been a year or two by this point--what were they waiting for?

Eventually, when I was in another new city and they were still there, I started coming to accept it. Somewhere out there, someone thought I was important enough to dedicate all these resources to watching me. I had no idea who it could be or why they would do this, but it was a comforting thought.