The fourth day, I was no more in balcony. I had packed old magazines, left my wine in fridge and was on lawn. I unlocked the small gate made of thin iron rods and had stepped out from there.

The group of kids came on bicycle like a group of flamingos. This time they had come in V shape just like birds with a fat kid on lead.

"Markeenz is ours!" The fat boy roared and others cheered.

Whole world is yours when you're a child. I wanted to say but they went like wind and disappeared as fast as they had come. From down, having clear look at those children looked tough.

But as always, the kid came in last.

"Hey! Hey! Stop there kid." I shouted at him but the boy didn’t seem to listen at all. Instead the boy was shouting to his group who had always left him behind, "Don’t go anywhere. Don’t go."

There was no chance for me to stop him. I hadn’t even been able to make him listen.

His words echoed inside my ears, Don’t go anywhere.

Was he telling me not to kill myself? I kept questioning myself for the whole night. If I wanted to meet him then I couldn’t do it how I was doing. I needed to do something else. I needed to stop those children who had always left him behind and ask who the one who always came in last was.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

To my misfortune, no kid came pedaling the next day. Gave me frustration I could hold no more. I screamed at street and stomped on road even though it hurt my knees and ankles.

I was thinking of going up on balcony and come down dead.

"Markeenz is mine. Yo Ho!" the sole kid came screaming in empty street.

"Wait! Hey boy! Wait!" I went in street but he didn’t stop smirking and drove from my side, "Don’t stop me please. Markeenz is mine. HAHA!"

He then disappeared like wind again. I guess this time he was even faster than the last time.

But I thought I had heard enough. And the boy had said as much as he needed to say. If I wanted to meet him then I was the one who needed to go at Markeenz.

I knew why kids loved to swim in there. The lake wasn’t deep and wasn’t furious. Most of all, it wasn’t of a big area at all. The depth was sometimes deceiving because the whole river was inside a crater. We had sometimes joked - Anderson Island was nothing less than Area 51. Children loved to claim a meteor had hit there who had made the crater. Well, it is children's talk and let it be how it is…

I knew where the boys had loved to swim. There was a tree on the bank and the place wasn’t very deep like other portion of the lake. No question in why newbies favored the place. This was the lake where many children of Anderson Island had learned to swim. Now on the way to there, I was going to learn how to walk despite of arthritis.

I took walking stick out of my house, locked the door and walked on.

I needed to walk fast because the child had never returned from the same way. What was I going to ask to him when I would have reached to Markeenz? I didn’t know. Why? I didn’t know. But it didn’t bother me at all.

At least I had something to live for.