When I woke up the following morning – and on virtually every single day since then, even up to today – there would always be someone waiting for me on my quiet street. Not necessarily a man who’d run towards me like on Day One, but invariably some person on my street, which had previously always been deserted.
One morning, there was even somebody exercising with a rope on the pavement while watching me leave my house. Exercising with a rope on a street in the dark at 5.30 in the morning – what the hell?!
Yet that wasn’t all. Because at my workplace, the TfL train depot in Acton, people who’d been my colleagues for some time were now beginning to spread rumours about me, telling our co-workers: “Don’t trust him – he’s dangerous!”
All of a sudden, the whole atmosphere at work completely changed, as I could hear my colleagues whisper to each other: “Look at his sinister face! Look at how big and powerful his hands are!”
Which is nonsense – I’m just a regular guy and not particularly athletic or anything. In fact, I even have a little bit of a belly. But from one day to the next, my colleagues started looking at me with different eyes based on totally preposterous, and indeed slanderous, comments from malicious individuals whose agenda I couldn’t figure out.
Then we got a new colleague – a guy called Desmond. He was English but had been living in Thailand until recently. We worked at opposite ends of our huge assembly building, but for no apparent reason, he would frequently come over to my desk in an attempt to befriend me.
“How are you, mate? Great to meet you,” he told me when we first met, but with an intensity that was unsettling. “Where’s your accent from?” he wanted to know.
“From Georgia.”
“No way! My ex-girlfriend is from Georgia.”
Now, under ordinary circumstances, that would have been nice to hear. But I had never encountered any English guy with a Georgian girlfriend or ex-girlfriend throughout my entire time in London. And considering all the stuff that had been happening recently, it seemed like a coincidence too far that our new colleague, who seemed so desperate to befriend me, had previously been going out with someone from my home country.
“I’d like to reconnect with her,” he told me. “I don’t know her surname, but maybe you could help me find her?”
I mean, how? It’s not like I know every person in Georgia, which has almost four million inhabitants.
“I’m thinking about travelling there to look for her,” he said.
Come again?
He also talked about how he wanted to marry her one day, and how he loved Georgian food and wine and so on. It all seemed very strange, to say the least. And he kept coming over to my desk all the time asking silly questions, which made me very suspicious.
But not only that – I also started noticing that every time Desmond came over,
I felt physically unwell. It got worse and worse, to the point that I was losing concentration and couldn’t do my work properly anymore. I would feel dizzy and didn’t even know where I was. At times, I wasn’t able to talk properly and would forget simple words. It was a terrifying experience.
What was he doing to me? Was he spraying some odourless nerve agent behind my back, and the toxic gases would stick to my hair and clothes and incapacitate me as I inhaled them constantly? That’s what I was starting to suspect, so I read up on it – and it turns out that there are indeed sprays like that, which will begin to have an effect within two or three minutes of being administered.
My whole life was already tense because every single day, someone would follow me from my home to work and back again. Now, Desmond became a very unsettling presence for me, too, and I watched him with great trepidation each time he approached my desk from the other end of our building. In fact, every time I’d spot him anywhere in our workplace, I would eye him with concern – which infuriated him.
“What are you looking at?!” he would bark.
“Why are you coming over to my desk all the time?” I would snap back.
We would argue, and soon, he complained to our manager about me. Then I was told to keep calm and not get into any arguments – as if it were all my fault!
I started looking over my shoulder at all times. Then we got two new colleagues who similarly had me in their sights – as if one person wasn’t enough to do the job, according to the Secret Service or criminal cartel that appeared to be behind all this.
Both of these new recruits were Zimbabwean. Anthony had only just moved over from there, while Herbert had already been living in England (in Milton Keynes). The two of them turned out to be ruthless and very dangerous. They even followed me to the toilet and sprayed me with nerve gas while I was in there. The fumes were so potent that I almost lost consciousness. My eyesight became very blurry, and sometimes, I couldn’t see at all. I would forget where I’d put my work tools, and in turn, I became frustrated and anxious.
Anthony and Herbert would always check what I was drinking and eating and where I was sitting during break times. In fact, they tracked all my movements – and they would strike suddenly whenever I wasn’t expecting it.
They also found helpers among ordinary workers. Those colleagues would talk to me in order to distract me whenever either Anthony or Herbert was coming up from behind to administer the nerve gas.
The situation became completely unbearable. I was totally depressed, and I couldn’t stand it anymore. As a result, I started making lots of mistakes at work despite having always been one of the best staff members up to that point.
“What is going on?” my manager asked me. “What’s the reason for the change in your behaviour and your attitude to work?”
The truth was, I’d always liked my job, which was a good one and well paid. Yet now I felt harassed there, as well as on my way to work and on my drive back.
At least my home still offered a sanctuary. Or so I thought. Because then I unexpectedly got a new flatmate.