The world of the vision shifted and fell out of focus. When it surged again, what I saw made me feel real sorry for the kid.

Time had passed in the room and now the kid’s mother was there. She had discovered the console and the stickered boxes, and with the ferocity of a feral cat, she tore a Star Wars sticker from the unit. Thankfully for me, she did what mothers who were pissed at their kids always did—she called the teen by his full name. Kevin Arnold Matthews. I had what I needed to try and find him, but I couldn’t escape the vision. Kevin begged for her to leave them alone, but the mother just ignored him.

The vision went blurry again. I knew time had passed because Kevin’s toys had all shifted place. He was standing there, watching and crying as his mother packed up the unit and games and, this time, threw them away. I felt the burn of his tears, his nose thick with snot.

Whatever caused this hateful display in this boy’s mother, I didn’t know. It was beyond my power. Only select glimpses were imprinted on items like the game console. I had to do a great deal of interpretation to figure out the whole story behind an item, and I constantly had to remind myself that I was human and therefore wrong sometimes.

But my interpretation of this vision so far was that the woman was a stone-hearted bitch for throwing the games out in front of Kevin. I felt compelled to return them to him, though, and I hoped they would help the guy reclaim a bit of his youthful idealism or happiness. If I was able to find him via the Internet. Sometimes I simply couldn’t track someone down if his name didn’t come to me in the vision and I’d end up selling the item back to another antiques dealer who simply thought I had a good eye. When everything fell in line, it felt great. It was those little victories that kept me going. Well, that and being able to pay my maintenance with the finder’s fee they hopefully felt compelled to cough up. Kevin Arnold Matthews, I repeated to myself over and over.