His shadow is on your mind

Toby opened the door and stepped inside. He didn't look around and he didn't check to see if anyone was following him. Someone was following him.

Toby went to the desk in the corner of the room and from the drawer he took out a small photo album. The album had many pages of photos, and he turned to one page in particular. The photo showed a man and a woman in front of a Ferris wheel. He slipped it the photo out of the album and looked a the back of it, and then he put it back in the album, and replaced the album in the drawer. His every movement was watched.

Toby left the room and went back down the hall. He left the building and headed for the bank. Using a bank card, he punched in the account number and the PIN number and then he withdrew some money. He used the money to buy groceries for a week. The groceries he chose weren't going to make for very interesting meals. Toby didn't mind because they weren't for him. They were for his mother.

He took the groceries home to his mother. She was sick in bed. He left the groceries on the kitchen table so she could put them away later. He played video games for an hour on the home console, and then he went out again, even though it was getting dark out. This is when he first noticed that someone was watching him.

It made him nervous that the person walking behind him always stayed behind him, no matter how many turns he made. He went around the block, twice, but the person kept trailing him. Toby started to sweat a little. He went into a coffeeshop and ordered a piece of particularly delicious pecan pie that was served with a slightly cold crust and a slightly warm filling that had layers of textures ranging from slightly crunchy to ever so custardy-smooth. No one followed him into the shop, and the pie was so good that he soon forgot about being followed. In fact, he forgot about everything, even his name, because the pie had a narcotic in it and he passed into a drugged slumber.

The proprietor of the coffeeshop helped the others take Toby into the back. They had a large canvas sack that they stuffed him into, and then they loaded the sack into the back of a van. The van drove off and the proprietor never knew what became of Toby after that. It was something that he wondered about even years later. What had he helped do? He didn't know, but he felt proud.