Once upon a time, there lived a boy. He was a good boy, and he lived a good boy life. He went to school, studied hard and did well. The boy was happy.

There came a time in the good boy's life that he decided that he could no longer stay home. There was a greater world out there for him to see, and he hoped to see it. He wanted to travel to far off places and try new things. He saw that the world held many exciting treasures, and he hoped to find every one of them.

The boy traveled to the great city and found a modest place to live. There were people around him from all sorts of places he had never seen before. The boy met a good many of them, and grew to befriend them in different places. He first met them at clubs, where he had fun with them and danced. He met them at his new friends homes, where they told jokes and slept. He met them at his new job, where they worked together and played. Life seemed good.

But as time went on, certain things started to happen that he could not explain. Some of his new friends stopped talking to him. Others told him stories he knew were not true. Some friends said things about him that hurt him, yet he could not understand why this was so. He couldn't stop thinking about it.

He couldn't stop thinking why bad people had good friends, and why good people wanted to have bad friends. He couldn't stop thinking about why good people had no friends. The world he grew up in was nothing like this new world. The world he grew up in was sane.

So, the boy began to smoke, because when he smoked it made the thoughts disappear. To inhale was to make the thinking stop altogether. The thoughts seemed to subside, but what were left were the strange, hurt feelings.

So, the boy began to snort, because when he snorted it made his feelings disappear. To snort was to make his feelings stop altogether.

The feelings stopped, and the boy did feel better for some time. But the feelings never really went away. The boy wondered where along his journey he had become bad.

Then, one day, the boy dropped, fell to the ground and looked up into the sky, which was a hazy color and let shine only one star. The star, ever growing brighter, turned to him and spoke to the boy.

"Poor boy, what ails you? Why do you look up at me as you look down upon the world?"

But the boy could not reply.

"I know what troubles you, for I have seen the faces of others who have fallen as you. But a fallen star you are not."

The boy spoke. "I'm not?"

"No, a star is only based on perspective. Not all stars fall from the sky, for not all stars are the same."

"But there are millions of stars... how can I tell?"

The star shone brighter and the boy's face filled with light.

"A star that falls is a fleck of rock, which burns as it falls to Earth. That, you are not. Stars are planets; moons; comets; suns. Stars are solar systems; galaxies; even whole universes, locked in a pinprick of light. Stars are all these things. But from Earth, they appear the same."

"Star light, star so bright, what kind of star am I?"

The star smiled down at the boy's innocent question and answered. "The correct question is not in what star you are, but in what star you want to be."

Suddenly, the star shone bright, and streaked across the sky, leaving a trail of glitter behind. The star was no more.

The boy closed his eyes.

When he reopened them, the sky was filled with thousands of pinpricks of light.

Stars.

For some reason, he had lost the ability to see them. He had even forgotten that they existed.

But now that he could see them...

The boy stopped snorting

He stopped smoking.

He was no longer entertained by the stories that bad people told. He removed the bad friends from his life.

Not much was left when he was finished. But what was left was good.

And whenever he seemed to feel a little lost, he would only have to look up at the sky, for the stars would help him find his way.