I wanted to make friends..

The psychiatrist held the door as a hesitant child of age eight walked in and sat on the small stool. The psychiatrist sat opposite to him.

"Hello Vinay, I am Dr. Majid. How are you doing?"

"I am sad Doctor.. No one plays with me and I am always alone at school."

"I am sure it will be fine after some days. So Vinay, do you know why I have called you here?"

"No… I don't know"

"Well then Vinay you know about Shelly? You know what happened to her?"

"Yes Doctor I know... Why do you ask?"

"I want to know what happened when you last saw Shelly. Everything okay Vinay? This is very important"

"Okay Dr…"

"Can you please tell me what happened?"

"Well… Shelly never talked to me Doctor.. No boy or girl ever talked to me."

"I am sorry to hear that Vinay. It is very tough to go to school like that. Now what happened at school?"

"A few days after school started again, I took some thing from Shelly. I took Shelly's Barbie pencil case."

"Did you ask her first?"

"No I didn't..."

"That is stealing Vinay; when you take things without asking. Why did you steal things? Don't you know it is a bad thing to steal?"

"I- I… um..."

"Its okay Vinay, everyone makes mistakes. Go on.. What happened after that?"

"One day I stopped her in class after the lunch break. I didn't want anyone to see me talking to her so I talked to her when everyone was playing in the playground."

"And why did you not talk in front of the class?"

"No one liked me. They would start hating her too if they saw me talking to her"

"That is sad Vinay. The kids in your class are not nice kids. But you cared for her. That means you care about others. That is good. Now what did you talk about?"

"I asked her to come over to my house. She didn't like it but I told her I had found her lost Barbie pencil case.

"I asked her again and she agreed and asked me not to tell anyone."

"So she agreed? That is good. You never had any friend over at your house before right?"

"Yes. But I didn't take her home. My house is close to the sea shore.. I took her to see the water with me from over the rocks"

"You mean the beach? Yes I heard you lived there Vinay. So you took her to the beach to see the water. Then?"

"I gave her pencil case back"

"That is good Vinay. How did she react?"

"She didn't thank me. She told me she knew I stole it and that all kids hate me for it"

"How did you react when she told you this Vinay? Were you hurt?"

"No. I asked her if she would be my friend"

"I see… So Vinay how many kids from school have you taken things from? And how many of them did you ask to come over to your place?"

"I… Ummm..... Shelly was the twentieth"

"And what did each of them answer Vinay? Did you make any friend?"

"They all said no"

"What did you do after they said no?" 

"I pushed them over the rocks"

The doctor stopped taking notes and looked at the little kid sitting in front "Why did you do that Vinay? Why did you push them over?"

"Because they said they hated me… beca…." Tears slowly became apparent in the boys eyes "because they said they didn't want me"

"But Vinay, why did you do all this? What did you want?"

Vinay looked up, a small smile appearing on the kids tear stained face "I just wanted to make friends"