Day 289 - Following Story

Following Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

Francine liked to follow people. Not for any particular or good reason. It was just sort of a hobby. During her teenage years, she and her friends liked to follow people and act annoying. It was funny. They tried to be loud and obnoxious and acted like the most boisterously stereotypical teenagers possible. Old people hated it. Young people hated it. Most people hated it. Francine and her friends were equal opportunity annoyers.

As she got older, she matured and outgrew the annoying other people part of the following, but she was ever more fascinated by the simple act of following another. At first she did it because she liked the mysterious side of it. It felt top secret. It felt daring. It was a risk and she wanted to see if she would get caught. Then she started to like the process for its own sake. She followed people and got to see how they acted when they thought they were all alone. She got to see the honest and true side of humanity. That was nice. She told herself that she was somehow conducting some grand social experiment. Except she didn’t have a theory and wasn’t testing anything or analyzing results. She was just scratching a voyeuristic itch. She liked the thrill of her secret pursuit. It made her feel dangerous. It sort of made her feel sexy. She pretended that she was like a spy or private eye.

She made up stories about the people she followed. She made up stories about them and about why she was following them. Francine sometimes wanted to get caught, just so she could pretend to be her character and to find out if somehow her story for the person was anywhere close to the truth. She became more and more daring in her pursuits, following people for longer periods of time and getting ever closer to them. She started to find the same people and follow them over and over. She learned their routines and habits. She was amazed when none of them noticed her, despite the fact that she was following them on a regular basis.

Then one day during a routine following, Francine heard footsteps behind her. She didn’t think anything of it at first. There were plenty of people around. It was entirely possible that someone else was headed in the direction that both she and her subject were headed. It was entirely possible that it was all just coincidental. Entirely. Except that it didn’t feel that way. Something was off. Something in the steps. They were too close to her pace, to her pattern. They were mimicking her too closely.

She abandoned her mission and headed home early. Whether or not anything was really amiss, the mood had been ruined and she was done for the day.

After that, she began to feel strange anytime she went out on a follow. She was nervous. Things felt strange. The magic was ruined and now she just felt uneasy. She would look around and check her surroundings, but never really noticed anyone out of the ordinary. Still, she was unconvinced. She had effectively been following hundreds of people and none of them noticed her. It was entirely possible that someone was after her and she hadn’t realized it. She was disappointed in herself. She thought she was better than that, that she had learned some real sneaking skills, and yet here she was unable to tell if she was being trailed or not.

Francine stopped following people. The game was dead. Now it just felt creepy. Whenever she was too close to a stranger on the street and noticed they were headed in the same direction, she would stop and go somewhere else. She couldn’t stand to be in step with someone else. She couldn’t stand to be that close. She felt too much anxiety. She felt too much dread.

Francine had hoped the feeling of being followed would go away after a while of not following others. It did not. The feelings came more often. She was sure someone was after her. She just couldn’t prove it.

Francine gave up her habits. She gave up her routines. She changed her life entirely. It didn’t matter. She was always nervous. Always looking over his shoulder. Strangers made her sick. She couldn’t trust any of them. Anyone could have been the one. Any of them could have been after her. She didn’t know. She couldn’t know. It got to the point that she could never go out. She was always afraid, always petrified by other people, unable to interact or talk to anyone. She worried that they were after her. She worried that any one of them could be an unwanted follower and that her entire life was on public display. Everything was frightening now. Everything was dangerous. Her life was ruined. Her fear consumed her. Her fear consumed everything.