There is no stopping the wheel of time. In the end, you can’t avoid the hammer banging against the anvil, as you can’t avoid being directly between the two. I wasn’t sure if I could leave my mother alone so I asked her a hundred times if she wanted me to stay, but she always smiled and declined my offer. Now, many years later, I wonder if she should have said yes. So much happens for so little reason. You can find yourself staring at the abyss, not knowing how you got there. Perhaps a little shake of the head is how I got there in the end.

The only thing I tried to occupy my mind with until that faithful Saturday, was reading HaraKiri. It was a book I found when we cleaned the living room and the only thing carrying me through the days.

It was exactly six o’clock when Sam knocked on the door. I didn’t want to let him in, being worried about the empty room not being hospital enough. Years later I realised I just didn’t want him to suffer even a tenth of what I suffered. I smiled at my mom, she smiled back and left the house.

Sam smiled at me. So weird, I thought. How nothing seemed to have changed somehow. Sam was still wearing jeans and a black t-shirt, his hair was still blond and short. He cleaned his round glasses with his t-shirt like he always did. Behind him stood Mack. Mack was the biggest of us three, both in length and size. He had thick, bronzed arms and dark hair in a ponytail. He carried his backpack. I remember him listening to music that made the previous generation cover their ears. Samuel and Mike and Barnabas. Sam, Mack and me that’s how it was since we were kids.

Now they were seventeen, busy with school, weekend jobs, motorcycles. Links in a chain called life.

I genuinely smiled, feeling the hot breeze on my face. I remember looking at them as we started walking towards the park west of my house. The little roads where people drove slow and kids cycled through whilst looking at the trees and saying; “We’re all cups filled with water, keeping each other half-full.”

“What do you mean?” Mack asked. The little hairs in front of his forehead were sticking out like a messy halo.

“Well, if something bad happens, we share our reserves, keeping each other half-full.”

“You mean we only live half lives?” Sam asked.

I nodded. I wasn’t sure what I meant, it was just a feeling. We were silent for a while.

“I would like to be a hundred per cent,” Mack said.

“You can’t, stupid,” Sam said. “You just made him fifty per cent.”

Mack frowned at him. “So who brings me back to fifty per cent?”

Sam laughed. “Well, that’s the point, it’s an endless effort.”

Sam. He was always wiser than us. It didn’t surprise me he became a psychologist later in life.

We talked about things to not have to talk about other things until we arrived at the park. In front of us stretched the enormous forests. I remember it smelled like tea. The freshness and the warm breeze, together with the birds singing over our heads brought a lightness even I couldn’t resist.

“Remember all the times we played in these woods?” Mack said. We all missed the times of building camps and playing with sticks.

Sam and Mack smiled at each other. “What’s going on?” I asked. They said nothing and we continued through the foilage, following the little paths further west. The sun was getting lower when we stopped at a little clearing.

“Remember the weird girl we met here sometimes? With the flowers behind her ears?” Mack said. We all did, sometimes we followed her from the shadows of the bushes. We talked about her as if we knew her, though we never had the courage to say anything.

“Well, what better to have with you when reminiscing the past than a bottle of Jack?” Mack took off his bag and placed it on the ground. He ruffled in the bag and got out a bottle. White liquid sloshed against its glass casing.

“I didn’t think of glasses, but hey, the bottle is more than half full so nothing to remark there.” He joked.

He gave me the bottle first. “To fifty per cent!” I said. “To fifty per cent,” they repeated.

We each took a sip and passed it whilst keeping our cool.

We started to feel quite elated. Enough so I dared to ask them about the old playground. “Do you know anything about a suicide that happened twenty years ago?” I asked. Their faces said it all. “Apparently a girl suicided there. I thought it would be a well-known thing. My mom… she didn’t want to tell me anything.”

Sam frowned. “Barry. I don’t know man. I know these times are hard, but try not to search the darkness, you know?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just… don’t go looking for monsters or keep yourself in a melancholy mood. Try to get to something positive. Like hanging with your friends.”

I crossed my arms. “So, you mean I should just forget this all and pretend nothing happened? That my father didn’t die?”

“You know I don’t mean that,” Sam said. He played with the bottle. “I just don’t wanna see you sad.”

“Well, sad is what you get now. What do you want me to do, huh?” I didn’t even want to talk about the ghost anymore. This apparent connection we had.

“We’re just scared you will fall away from us!” Mack said. “Scared to lose you. We want to stick with you man. But we can’t if you go into self-destruction mode.”

“So you take me to a forest to get drunk. Much more sensible.”

Mack looked away at the trees and balled his fist. It was a telltale sign for trouble.

“What? You wanna kick the sad guy now? It doesn't convene you anymore?”

Mack looked away. He said nothing.

Sam placed his hand on my shoulder. “We are not the ones you’re mad at.” And I couldn’t argue with that.

“I’m mad at the fucking world!” I snatched the bottle from his hands and gulped down some whatever was left. The alcohol burned my throat. I could even feel a waft in my nose. I coughed like crazy. “Fuck.”

“Remember that girl?” Sam said after a while. “I asked her out once.”

We all laughed. “You’re kidding, right?” I said.

“Why not? You were way too self-conscious to do it.”

“Friendzone, the graveyard of romantic dreams,” Mack said. We laughed.

“Have you ever seen a cloud disappear?” I asked whilst looking up. “I mean, maybe they’re just going home.”

Mack whistled. “And the rain is just it's tears ‘cause they’re homesick.”