James woke up and didn't know where he was. It wasn't morning yet and there was no clock in the room. The humidity and buzzing air-conditioning brought him back to the present. He decided he would get up and make his way to the lobby, his fight left at 8:00 am, and he wanted to be sure he didn't miss the shuttle. That was when he met them. The mystery men. The followers, who would haunt him for years to come.

The trip had been a nightmare. Rescheduling legs of flights through Lima and San Trinidad after cancelling plans to visit Macchu Picchu -(he did only have 2 weeks with his brother after all, no time to self indulge in a spiritual hike), he made his way across south america skipping quickly like a stone on its last few hops.The lobby was pungent with mold as he came down the last step.

They seemed harmless enough at first, the types that come across as IT consultants or something equally dreary, dressed in suits and waiting by the reception. The first, a doughy man with receding slate hair, greeted James in English. Greeted him as though he were expecting him, as though he had been waiting, with no accent. The second man, the younger of the two, thin and unassuming with square frameless glasses, put down his paper  folding it under his hand on the reception counter and looked at James as an entomologist might look at a rare beetle.

Nice to meet you, are you taking the shuttle at 5? said Mr. Dough,

Good morning, is it at 5? Do you happen to have the time? Asked James.

It's 4:30.  he replied.

Thanks, I'd better get my bag upstairs.

James got his bag, made a quick scan of the room to ensure he had left nothing behind, and returned to the lobby and the two curious characters.

This time the insect man lead off : not staying long in Lima? Only one night I see?

James responded, explaining how he had made plans only to cancel them, and that he was headed to see his brother in Paraguay.

The odd thing was,  James was struck as the conversation continued, that for every question they asked in the 25 minutes until the shuttle came, they already seemed to know the answer. And it got stranger still.

Stepping in the car, for it ended up that a regular taxi, not the type of bus type vehicle he had expected, MR Dough, who had introduced himself as Guillermo, commented as though he knew him, "my niece is bipolar, as long as she takes her meds, she's fine."

James thought, "so?" but at the same time felt a chill run through him, and felt a sense of unreality. He was bipolar. He ran through the series of peculiar things which had happened to him in the last 24 hours. His bags had disappeared and didn't fly with him, the note delivered by the attendant stating "Mr Samuels, we regret to inform you your bags were not loaded onto the aircraft>Please consult airport personnel at you arrival destination." Before that they had muddled his ticket and lost his booking, and in Lima the airline representative had stayed with him for his entire day in Lima, taking him to a high end restaurant to eat ceviche and drink pisco sours, all at a strangely friendly personal expense. No one thing seemed odd at first, but something was peculiar. But James had a history of psychosis, and had learned not to trust his gut. The events  after all, were not that strange, if odd at all, he reassured himself. Mr Dough continued, changing the topic to his love of his adoptive country, the U.S.. They arrived at the airport.