I Might Be an Alien

I can’t come right out and say that I am in fact an alien, because if I did, it’d violate the prime directive handed down to me by my species before I left. And frankly, that doesn’t really make much sense, because if you know me and you think about it, it’s pretty fucking obvious. Hell, I even have O negative blood, and there’s an entire society of crazies out there who run a website dedicated to proving that everybody with my blood type is at least partially extraterrestrial. Seriously. Google it (my next mission is to silence these uppity fools). So anyway, “hypothetically speaking,” I was sent here to observe humanity and report back my findings after I phone home and hitch a ride back to the motherland via a floating thingamabob that’s way too cool for your merely mortal mind to comprehend.

 

I’m just writing this to vent a bit of frustration, because sometimes, it’s just so damn hard to fit in with the rest of you. I feel alienated, and rightfully so. I feel it deep in my bones which are covered in this fleshy disguise. I stand in groups of my newfound friends and feel so damn far away. I’m supposed to be one of you. I’m supposed to feel at home here and be welcome. But my species is violently allergic to small talk and all the idle chit chat. It makes me want to shoot lasers out of my eyes which would both cut down on my number of friends, and blow my cover right to hell. So I hold it in. I wear a smiling mask. I stand there in a sweat of anxiety and tell you what I’ve been doing. I compliment the food at dinner parties. I even ask back trivial questions to secure my place amongst you, but always inside, I await the deeper conversations which will give me clues as to what it means to be human, because I simply have no idea. And now, to make it worse, I’ve gone and married a seraph like gorgeousness human woman and reproduced. I’ve co-created two beautiful, mostly human girls. Can you imagine the strain that’s put on my mission? Now, not only am I supposed to learn everything about your wonderful species, but I’ve also been tasked with not fucking up two of your greatest specimens.

 

I feel like a monster at times with these two girls and with this wife of mine. When my first daughter was born, my green eyed mini-me, I anxiously awaited the findings from her first blood test. I got lucky. It was AB positive for Catelynn; there wasn’t anything to be O negative about. But I wasn’t in the clear. In my head, and in my true form, I’m this beastly and black muscled being with glowing red eyes and clawed hands who’s trying to hold on to a precious creature. Can you picture that? Imagine an evil demonic form, all angles and smoking malice, holding an outstretched weapon of a hand in which rests a pure and beautiful child. Her skin is alabaster and her doe eyes look up at the creature who sired her as if to ask “what do I do now father?” My cracked lips purse, hiding my fangs, and my red eyes go wide in fright. One of those cartoonish thought bubbles comes out of my horned head and says “Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit.” What the hell am I supposed to tell her? I have no idea how her species functions. And if I try to hold her, the spiky claws tipping my fingers are sure to pierce her heart. I’m screwed. I’m sure my second daughter will be fine, because for some reason, she was born with a superpower which allows her to climb and play on my claws as if they were monkey bars, but I fear truly for my first daughter and for the gentle wife who chose me.

 

At times, I want to let go. I feel them slipping away from me and I know that my grasping hands are imparting scars. I grab and grab and stab and stab and it doesn’t matter that my intentions are pure because my family bleeds in my clumsy haste. I know exactly how Edward Scissorhands felt when he tried to hold on to his maker or that girl who was later accused of stealing from a department store. That poor fool was only trying to hold those whom he loved, but those black handled shears cut them deeply. Edward was able to carve works of art into ice and shrubbery; I’m able to type adroitly on these keys with my claws and string together words which make you keep reading. Holy shit; Edward Scissorhands is my spirit animal.

 

I cut my family recently. I got lazy with my emotions and let them govern my actions. Emotions are new to me, because on my planet, we don’t have emotions. We’re governed by rationality. We speak in calculus. Love and trust are alien concepts to us because they come from light-years away. I’m learning too slowly, and perhaps it’s too late, but I’m trying. I met with a human, a human who knows humanity better than most humans, and she’s showing me how to behave, but I have so far to go. I’m down in a pit; it’s a pit which I dug with these cumbersome hands. But maybe these claws can be tools too. Maybe these claws can give me purchase on the walls of this pit as I climb out. Maybe I can learn just in the nick of time what it means to be one of you and I can scramble above the rim of my pit and let the sunshine of our species crumble away the chitin of my false carapace, and then I can stand on even ground with the rest of you in the glory of who I’m supposed to be. All I can do is hope. All I can do is fight. And tonight, as I write this, that’s exactly what I’m doing. The report I’ll write before I phone home will be a good one. This mission will be a success.