He sagged down on the sofa, not having enough energy even to get a cup of coffee. He looked around his living room through half-open eyes. After a long week's work, he always became philosophical. Though he was well into his forties, he had no pictures of happy children filling every available space on his wall. He didn't have children, actually. He didn't have a wife. No girlfriend. Not even a dog. Just a rich dad, a rich company and endless time.


He was very strange. Quite often, the most eccentric people were the coolest. He wasn't one of them. He was fat, and balding, and stuttered in female company. What he did when he was alone, people never wanted to know, because it was painfully obvious and gross. But he had stopped caring about them, a long time ago. He had stopped caring about what anyone thought.


He finally got to his feet. He needed some excitement, and for that he had to stay awake. He made himself a cup of coffee and switched on his laptop. His perpetually open tab – Facebook.


Ah, he had a notification. That kid had accepted his friend request. Now, he had 58 friends, not 57. Joy. To be fair, it wasn't even his account. He had made a fake account, of a kid living down the road, whose parents were too poor to afford a computer. He had befriended everybody in the kid's classroom, all those innocent 10-year olds. And so he decided to strike up a conversation with his newest "friend".


"Hi there! Will you be my friend? :) "


"Sure! :)"


"Thanks! You know, I really loved your sneakers today."


Our hero had no idea what the other kid's sneakers looked like. But he knew that ten year olds couldn't resist a compliment.


"Thanks! Your jeans were fab!" What kind of person uses the word "fab", our hero thought. But things were going great, so far.


"I'm sorry I didn't really get a chance to talk to you today.", our hero typed.


"I know! I think we could be best friends :)" came the reply. Our hero thought something was off. No ten year old really talks like that. Then again, this generation was weird. You never know what they did. Plus, things were going better than he had anticipated.


"Hey, I know, let's meet up some time! I don't think we stay very far from each other."


"Yeah sure! When do you want to meet? And where?"


"How about, the playground, in about half an hour?" The long summer rays were just receding. Half an hour later, it would get dark, and the playground would be abandoned.


"Yeah sure! I'll see you there!" Brilliant, our hero thought. This was just brilliant.


"Hey can you get your trading cards too? I heard you have an awesome collection!" This was our hero's last ploy. Nothing like a little showing-off-of-trading cards to attract young boys.


"Oh I was just going to ask you the same thing! You get yours too!". Well, the hero thought. The kid down the road, and the kid he was talking to just now, were obviously cut from the same cloth.


"Oh definitely! See you in half an hour!", our hero typed.


"Yeah! Bye :)" came the reply.


And now, the wait.













***


It didn't occur to the hero, that he was about to meet someone four times younger than him. It didn't occur to him, what he wanted to do was wrong on just so many levels. He had really stopped caring. He'd do whatever he wanted - even if it was perverted, especially since he was too shameless to realize it. The anticipation of what he was about to do started growing inside him.


He glanced around the playground. The kid was ten minutes late. Our hero didn't like it, when things didn't go according to plan. He had gone on one too many drinking rages when that happened, and people preferred to leave him alone mostly. He really wanted a drink right now. He was almost on the verge of heading home and getting one. Maybe the kid's mother wouldn't let him go out in the dark. But it wasn't like a kid, to ditch a plan made with a potential best friend. He was puzzled. Anyway, he thought, how did it matter? He decided to head home, he'd meet the stupid kid the next day. Kids were all the same really. Especially ten year old boys.


Out of desperation, he scanned the playground one last time. He noticed an old man, who had been there for quite a while. He had arrived there when our hero arrived, and had exactly the same puzzled look, and the despair of unfulfilled anticipation, as our hero.








***