Fear: the world's fuel. The great motive. The point of it all. In life, I can make a short list of things I've done for love--and an endless, uncontrollable list of adventures, experiences, stories that I haven't lived because of fear. Fear thwarts your free will in the most insidious and subtle way. Fear, that- "Good morning, sir." A small boy made my train of thoughts vanish; the train was suddenly never there. The boy was very short, too young to be allowed to walk alone in the street. He could have been at most seven. I looked around: no sign of his parents, or anybody for that matter. The street lay deserted. "Good morning." All of a sudden I realised he was walking with me. I slowed down. Where did he come from? I doubted the world around me for a second: maybe I was just living a dream; maybe not... was there a way to tell? "Where are you going?" I asked. Inside, my brain was screaming. Stay sane, I told myself. Stay sane. "I don't know. I guess I'm following you." "Why?" "It's better than walking on your own, isn't it?" It's not, I wanted to say. But I didn't. I kept on walking instead, trying to figure out where I had seen the boy before. I vaguely recognised him. Maybe it was just that he lived around the corner from me; that would explain his sudden appearance. We walked for a little while without speaking. "Excuse me," somebody called right behind us. "Can I come too?" We both turned: it was a young girl. She could have been seven too, and had come from nowhere just like the young boy had a minute before. "Yes?" I said. "I wasn't talking to you. I am not supposed to talk to strangers. In fact..." she turned her head towards the young boy. "Can you please tell this man that I wasn't talking to him at all, and that I am not allowed to talk to strangers?" The boy started, impassible: "She said that she wasn't talking to you, and--" "I know, I know," I said. "There's no need to repeat it, for God's sake!" I was loosing it. Slowly but surely, my sanity was slipping away. "Where are you g--" I stopped. "Can you ask the young lady here where she's going?" The boy talked, without acknowledging my question. "Where are you going?" My heart stopped. "You know where I am going," she answered. "No I don't!" I shouted. We were walking faster and faster. The boy stabbed at me with his eyes. "She was talking to me. I do know where she's going" he said with his unreasonably atonal voice. They were walking hand in hand right beside me. "We'll hit the main road soon," I tried to say. But it came out all wrong. My voice was trembling with fear. If I'd have known, I wouldn't have spoken. Now, they knew I was afraid. We walked in silence. Their bare feet pounding the ground were somehow louder than my own elephantine steps. Eventually, we came to the main road. Would they have crossed it? Were they allowed to do so? And where on earth were they going? I counted the number of steps. The sound of their feet on the ground confused me. The main road was there, traffic was raging, cars were parked all over, vision was limited. I slowed down. They didn't. I tried to reach them, I could become their saviour, the adult who saved two innocent children. But I was too late, they had already started crossing and a motorbike nearly clipped my arm. I could still hear the sound of their feet. They kept on going, fearless, hand in hand. I remembered something I was thinking about earlier. What I didn't do. Where I didn't go. What I didn't dream. A car was approaching, maybe too fast, towards them. The children didn't slow down at all. I had to keep my sanity. I shut my eyes.