I once came across the story of a young boy from a quaint town in Colorado. Every weekday, he'd go to a normal school with normal boys. His grades were good, but the boys weren't very nice to him. They'd pick on him whenever they got the chance, waiting for him to snap. He didn't. In fact, he ran home from school everyday bursting with glee, because he knew his mom would be there to cheer him up. As soon as he walked in the door, a white labrador would pop out of thin air and lick his face. He'd walk down the hall, and the paintings would greet him. The food always tasted amazing, and the dishes cleaned themselves. After a meal, he'd run into the living room and watch TV with his mom. He would never forget her impossibly soft golden locks.

One day, the boy's mom started acting really weird. She told the boy to take detours home to avoid being seen and to never to talk to any of the boys at school. She got angry whenever the boy asked why. Over time, everything in the house got slightly wrong. The labrador turned into a turnspit, and the paintings changed from oil to watercolor.

A couple days later, the boy's mom woke him up before sunrise. She looked scared. As he looked around his room, he saw that all his belongings were packed into boxes. She told him they were moving over the border to go hide from someone. She smashed up her phone, removed the car's GPS, and and drove off with the boy.

Even though he missed home, the boy loved the ride. His eyes were glued to his window as he watched the mountains and valleys of Wyoming and Montana whizz past him. His mom got really worried when she caught him looking out the window, and draped a blanket over his car window. He got carsick and wanted to get out, but she wouldn't let him. She told him it was for his own good.

Finally, they arrived in a Canadian town with a name the boy wasn't told. The hotel they stayed in smelled really bad, and the other people living there looked dangerous. The peeling wallpaper was a sickly yellow, and if he put his ear to the wall, he could hear rats.

The boy's mom tried to act like everything was fine, but he knew it wasn't. She tried to make everything normal, but the hotel room just became more magic the longer she stayed. Instead of a labrador, the boy would wake up to sometimes see a dying bulldog at the end of his bed. The paintings were back, but they screamed when someone walked by. Whenever he used the plates, they changed shape from circles, to squares, to hexagons, to circles again.

Sometimes the boy's mom would wake up in the middle of the night screaming. She'd wake him up, and they'd go for a nice walk together. As the boy looked out at the grassy plains stretching forever with his mom tousling his brown curls, he knew everything would be okay.

His mom calmed down after a week or two. They'd go out to dinner every night, and got to know the restaurant owner. Sometimes he'd sit down and have dinner with them. He was really funny.

On boring days, the boy and his mom would climb up the nearby mountain. He got tired quick, but once they reached the top, they thought they could see the whole world.

A month into their trip, the boy went to bed buzzing with excitement. When he wakes, he will be exactly ten years old. His mother tells him she has something special planned. What could it be? Was the restaurant owner coming over? Were they climbing a taller mountain? He simply couldn't wait.

He woke up early the next morning after hearing a super loud firework in his mom's bedroom. That was it! She must've magicked up fireworks for his birthday. He always talked about how he loved fireworks, and how he dreamed to set one up himself. He shot out of bed at shocking speed and raced into mom's room.

He did not find fireworks.

Mom was still in bed, and it looked like she was staying there. Instead of her face was a clump of muscle and brain matter. Her white sheets were stained a crimson red. To her left stood two important looking men. One had a black shotgun, and the other stood with his hands in his pockets, smoking something. They both had a symbol of a blue star on their breast pocket. The men looked at the boy. One scoffed woefully, then offered the boy a smoke. The boy threw up, then passed out.

The boy remembers none of this. Neither do the schoolboys in Colorado, or the restaurant owner. The blue star men made sure of it. He got adopted by a quiet old couple on a small farm in Texas. It was hard at first, but he learned how to farm. He loves his farm, and it loves him.

Now, the boy spends the mornings running through the corn fields, and the afternoons feeding the pigs. But every so often, just before he drifts off to sleep, he sees his mother tousling his hair in Canadian plains. He doesn't know who this woman is, but he knows that he loved her. He faintly recalls this the following morning, but forgets before he can write it down. This image sat in the back of his mind till his final days, and he thought nothing of it.

What, I wonder, would've happened to the boy if not for the blue star men?