'Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow, and everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.' Hold on to that notion for a second, because I'm trying to go somewhere with this.
Sheep seem fairly innocent, right? They just stand around in fields, munching on grass, occasionally pausing only to bleat, or stare uncomprehendingly at country ramblers who for some insane reason think that they can communicate with sheep by baaing at them. I can't remember the last time I saw a sheep punching someone with a shovel, or kerb-stomping a newborn baby kitten. Unless you've seen the movie Black Sheep, where sheep turn carnivorous and try to eat people, you'll probably have never seen a sheep appear aggressive or antagonistic at all. But it does happen. Some sheep are simply wolves coated in wool.
The point I'm trying to make is, stalkers are kind of like sheep. At least, my stalkers are. The stalkers in question are a group of third year girls at my school. Years ago, I would never have noticed them. Nowadays, I try to keep to the shadows, fearing for my life every time I blindly turn a corner. Describing them as a group of casual admirers would be possibly the almightiest understatement in recorded history. They're not a group. They're a cult. A voracious, co-ordinated pack, dedicated to hunting down the 'Awesome Hair Guy' and touching his head. They probably sniff the air currents to find out if I'm in the immediate vincinity. I don't simply state this as a possibility, it's pure unadulterated fact. They show up anywhere and everywhere, around school, around Belfast, around wherever my scent leads them. There is nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. There is no escape. As if the initial encounter wasn't disorientating enough (it raised questions such as 'Who are you?', 'Do I know you?', 'Why are you touching my head?' and 'Where is the nearest office where I can procure a restraining order?'), their uncanny ability to repeatedly locate me is considerably more impressive/blood-chilling.
As for the stalkers themselves, they're possibly one of the most random groups I've ever seen in my life. There's no cohesion or regularity that I can see whatsoever, at least in looks. One of them looks like a confused goldfish trying to comprehend how quantitative easing works. Another looks like a hamster and Seth Rogen have collided into each other at the speed of light in a wig factory and have merged into one semi-sentient being. Another still looks like a visual representation of the words 'Well hello, sugarpants' being said by the campest man on the planet. And there's not much consistency in how they communicate with me either. Requests vary from 'Can I have a hug? It would make my day' to 'Can I rape your hair?' There's no similarity, the cult actually only exists because two heads are better than one and it's much easier to track me down if they're all on the lookout. I don't even know if they need to be on the lookout, I'm thoroughly scouring all my possessions for homing devices as I write this.
Now, you're possibly wondering what on earth this has to do with passive, fluffy farm animals. Well, they're essentially the same, aren't they? Sheep appear harmless, but (citing the Black Sheep example), appearances can be decieving. The aforementioned group of third years (and of course by 'group', I mean 'pack', and by 'third years' I mean 'vicious, relentless, creepy, horrific, ravenous monsters) seemed completely innocent at first glance, yet time revealed them to be utterly more terrifying; much like a unicorn-shaped pinata that you break only to find that it's filled with blood, entrails, dead puppies and that kid from just down the street that the police have been searching for for the last seven months. And he's got an axe in his spine. An old, blunt-edged rusty axe with a picture of Hitler carved into the dried-in blood. It makes me shudder just thinking about them.
So there you have it. Stalkers are like sheep. And bizarre pinatas. I'd love to write more, but I'm going to have to go. Three of them have scaled down the side of my house and are scrabbling at my window with their woolly hooves, trying to get in and bleating their little heads off. I'm going to sneak out the front and run for the hills.
And I'm going to set fire to the bushes in my garden on the way there, just to make sure.
