One of a kind, when you need a pair.

So, then they told the boy he thought too much. They told him to put his feelings aside. They told him to err on the side of happy. So the boy reached into the back of his head, took out the problematic component, and reset himself. Then the boy who had lived with the stars replaced the component with a redundant memory chip, one that would take the things he'd think about and dump them before they could cause problems.

They boy could feel it working right away. Suddenly, he was happier, more carefree. A whimsy filled his days, and his nights were brighter just on the influence of his own bright outlook. Insults and left-handed compliments rolled off his back like something that rolls off of something else with a lot of ease.

Then, slowly, things began to change. Not him; nay, he had already changed.

The thoughts he had thunk were forcing themselves out into the world. By getting lost in them and turning his thoughts over and over, the boy had been doing the world a service by creating a large reservoir of thoughts no one wanted to think. With this reservoir removed, the universe had to accommodate the slack. The people the boy knew found themselves overburdened by dark thoughts, deep thoughts, thoughts that shouldn't be thought. And as these people dropped away, one by one like bugs from a zapper, the boy found himself lonelier then ever. But he didn't care this time. He couldn't care. He moved along, collecting other people to fill the vacuum of those others, people who would come to fill the vacuum his thoughtless mind created.

He calls these people "friends."