MAY 22, 2022 – (Cont.) “Did you just say something?” I asked aloud, facing the the glob of glowing, whirring filaments.
“Uh huh.”
“Well, now,” I said, “you’re hard to read, a difficult object to wrap my head around, if you know what I mean.”
“I know exactly,” said the alien. “Upon landing here, I downloaded English—idioms and all. I can’t read your mind, but I can read your words, and hear them, understand them, and as you’re experiencing, I can also talk your language . . . so to speak.”
“In that case,” I said, “you’ve got a lot of explaining to do, starting with who you are, where you’re from, how you got here, and why you chose to land in my backyard.”
“Actually,” the creature said, “I first landed in Matt Seltzer’s yard—his front yard, to be precise. He thought I was joking. More important, he didn’t want his wife to call 9-1-1 on him, so he surreptitiously gave me your address; said you’d probably be hangin’ out back.”
“I see.”
“Beyond that, I’ll give you my full story after you tell me what gives here on earth. Since I don’t experience time as you perceive it, you could say I’ve got all the time in the world . . . er, cosmos . . . so go on, shoot—explain life on earth.”
“That’s a heavy lift,” I said. “I wouldn’t know where to begin. Besides, I don’t know much outside my own little world within the bigger world. Moreover, I’m biased. I have so many prejudices, big and small, I’m not sure I’m your guy, er, person, to explain what’s going on here on earth.”
“Don’t underestimate my ability to fact check, synthesize, and analyze what you say. I’m on an exploratory mission and will decide later which of your words to accept or reject—and whether to wipe out your species or let you do that to yourselves.”
Wipe out our species? Shivers ran up my spine. Could it be that the fate of humanity depended on my explanation of life on earth—to a random alien?
“Why don’t you make yourself comfortable on our porch,” I said, to calm my own nerves. I was now a captive, but the whole world had been taken hostage—with no one else yet knowing it. Until the thing took aggressive action, I figured it was in humankind’s strategic interest for me to behave diplomatically. Without answering verbally, the thing passed through the the porch screen and found quarters to its liking—a glass tabletop, where the thing could bask in its glowing reflection.
As I collected my thoughts, I felt a terrible burden. If my explanation of life on earth were too negative, the alien might trigger our total, immediate destruction. On the other hand, if my account were overly sanguine, this savvy creature could decide I was untrustworthy and punish all of humanity for a falsified version of “what gives” here on earth. I needed to find middle ground—“Goldilocks” territory guarded by disclaimers.
(Remember to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.)
© 2022 by Eric Nilsson
