Somewhere out there, possibly in the fourth and invisible dimension, is a country with an unknown location. None of us will ever be able to go there. We are not sure, but we think it isn’t populated by humans.

But we know that in this strange country are the answers to many questions we have and have had.

For example, “Where are my car keys?” On occasion, a set of car keys disappears, and although a thorough search is carried out by the owner of the keys and every available person, the keys will never be found.

You may think that’s impossible. But it is not. Because this and other similar disappearances happen all the time.

Have you ever “misplaced” a library book? Have you searched extensively, even in places it could never be, as well as every possible place a library book could be concealed?

Though you may look periodically under the edge of the bed, the car seat, even in the trunk, you never find it. As time goes by, you search less often, but still you always wonder, what could possibly have happened to it?”

Nobody knows. Nobody has seen it.

Well, the answer is obvious. The library book still exists. Just not here in your world.

Perhaps it was during the night while you were sleeping. Something crept into the house in the dark and looked around for things that caught its eye. Or eyes.

There is no current description for this mysterious presence, but I, for one, am convinced it exists. It is a force that covets your possessions. Most attractive to it are those things you rely on whose absence renders you helpless and frustrated.

When problems appear, we look for solutions. But this problem, more common than you may think, has no solution.

You have something this entity wants. It doesn’t matter if the thing is carefully locked away, hanging in your closet or in your wallet. It doesn’t matter, because these things you treasure and need will be morphed away with no trace to be taken to the invisible land of the lost and missing objects.

Once there, they are set free from any human control. Books wander where they may, their pages rustling in the breezes. Unmated shoes hop unbounded along the shores of a vast sea.

Car keys travel without benefit of automobiles, umbrellas are always open in a light rain and they travel together. The rain stays with them. After all, that is their purpose. No more will they be shut up in cars and closets, but they will be free to spin into the sky, up and away.

Kites fly forever in the land of the lost and missing.

There’s an entire county populated with cellphones that call each other. And bifocals travel with all the books and read constantly without benefit of the humans who search for them fruitlessly.

It’s important to accept that once your treasures are missing, a search is a fruitless exercise in futility. Just remember them fondly, replace them immediately and picture them living happily ever after in the land of the lost and the missing.