They swarmed us like a war of the worlds,
those goddamn bees.

I was nine. My lucky and strange friend Billy was ten.

I got stung twenty times. Billy got didn’t
get stung at all.

At first I couldn’t figure out why the bees kept stinging me
and none stung Billy.

Billy said it was because he was an alien.
I laughed back then, but now I think he was right.

Because three years later, I saw a large UFO over Billy’s house
and Billy and his family disappeared forever.

I think he must have gone back to his home planet
in some distant galaxy unknown to any scientists.

Bob Boyd