text: I've just decided yup, that's a spaceship when it thumps to the wet sand nearby. It was moving, or falling, fast enough that it seems like it should have broken, but it seems unharmed. It's a big grey egg. I've wondered about this sort of thing before. It came up a lot during my pothead phase: What would you do if a UFO landed? People seemed to come down on the issue based on which science fiction they'd seen or read most recently. I liked to think of myself as the open-minded guy in the group, and I'd seen the most Star Trek, so I often took the position that I'd be the person who wandered up to an alien artifact and held out a hand to shake, hoping for the best. Turns out, I'm not that person. Never meet your heroes. I cower, for what it's worth, because there's no cover anywhere. It's a wide, empty beach and the moon isn't out. My family is probably still asleep in the tents. I like to come out here alone on our camping trips because the stars are impossibly beautiful and my wife doesn't know I still smoke. In fact I realize I haven't dropped my pipe or lighter. They're clenched in my sweaty, vibrating fists. I decide to praise myself for having steady hands, instead of acknowledging that I've probably got a problem. The space egg does nothing. It's not making any noise, or glowing, or anything. It's a little larger than a Volkswagon. I straighten up because the half-crouch is hurting my thighs and pride. A minute or two goes by. I take the remaining hit from my pipe without taking my eyes off the egg, then put it away. So this is it. First Contact. It occurs to me that it's probably technically possible that this thing is just a rock. I squint at it. Am I the world's biggest idiot? I'm comforting myself with the notion that an egg-shaped space rock is still a pretty cool thing to be able to show people, when the side of the thing dials open silently and a person steps out of it, waving vaguely at me. I stare. The figure leans backward in a long, slow stretch, then rotates it's upper body in the familiar "I've been driving too long" movement everyone does. It moves just like a human. It's about six feet tall. It's wearing black pants and a baggy floral patterned shirt. It just kind of looks like a dude. Apparently that's enough for me to step forward and wave, and I say "Hey there," like you do when you pass someone in the parking lot of a grocery store. Immortal words, if this really is First Contact. Shit, did I just start a war? I am too high for this. The space egg dude steps away from his egg, and the side of the thing closes again. He holds out a hand with the wrong number of long fingers and grins at me with a mouth that's confusingly feline. His voice is a quiet, controlled yowl. "How's it going?" We stare at each other. His hand is still out, as if to shake. It's smooth, brown, and has something like narrow, curved, black fingernails. I don't know what to do. My heart feels like it's going to explode but that just happens sometimes when you smoke good pot. The space egg dude yips and rolls his eyes, withdrawing the hand. "First alien?" "Yeah." "Yeah, that tends to be the case out here. Well, I mean you no harm and all that. I'll be out of here in fifteen minutes." He looks around the beach and sighs. "Hard to believe it takes that long to catalogue... this." "I like it here," I say, a little offended. "What are you cataloging?" I'm vaguely aware that I'm not reacting to this situation in anything resembling a reasonable way. This is not what I should be asking. I should not be talking to this being. A normal person would have run away. A really brave and smart person would be asking why the alien speaks English like he's from Long Island. The alien gestures around. "The area. A few cubic units of it, at the atomic level. Because, you know, nowhere else has saltwater and sand." "This is... your job?" "Got a clever one here, don't we?" He yips again and I realize it's a laugh. "Yeah, this is my gig. There's all kinds of nerds and weirdos who buy scans of frontier worlds. My cousin's a scan broker. It's all right. It's fucking boring, but the ratio of pay to actual effort is pleasingly steep." He takes out a little device and sucks on it, then exhales a vapor that sparkles dramatically before vanishing. It's a vape pen. What is happening? It isn't supposed to be like this. I know it. I can feel it the way you feel that voice telling you to get a gym membership, and it has as much authority over me. I can't make myself give a shit. It's like we do this every year when I come camping. I'm just accepting it. Why? "What are you smoking?" "Smoking? God, no, you people still smoke? This is sparkling. Much better for you. Want a hit? I've never seen what happens when one of you guys tries it." "I probably shouldn't," I insist, pulling my own pipe back out again. He's smoking, so I guess it's all right if I do too. "I'm on a trip with family. Can't get too crazy." The alien shrugs. We smoke, together and separately, for a quiet minute. I study his body with interest while the tiny voice inside grows increasingly disturbed. He's not human, his bones and muscles aren't in the right places and his face is all wrong, but he looks enough like one of us that you wouldn't be able to tell the difference from fifty feet away. He's barefoot, standing on broad, clawed tiptoes in the sand. I'm not concerned, just curious, so I ask, "Are you doing something to my emotions somehow?" The alien yips quietly and nods. "Oh yeah. Got to. Are you kidding me? You guys freak out if we don't. Don't worry, it won't hurt you any. It just makes your brain not able to panic until after I leave." "That's pretty neat." "I use it on myself when I'm stressed," he says in agreement. "I keep thinking I should be reacting more strongly to all of this," I admit. "Nice to know I'm not just crazy." "Yeah, well, enjoy that feeling. It goes away once you try to tell someone about the alien you did drugs with." I laugh out loud at that. He's totally right. I laugh again at the thought of someone putting up some kind of First Contact Monument, a great bronze man and alien, ripping fat clouds. "That reminds me," I chuckle, "There are cultures on this planet that do a Peace Pipe ritual when they meet with foreigners or whatever. We're kind of doing that." "Super," the alien purrs. He inhales and exhales dancing light, watching the waves with evident disinterest. "I keep forgetting to ask, why do you look so much like a human?" "What do you mean? I don't look a thing like you." I gesture vaguely at his whole form. "Maybe not superficially, but isn't this kind of crazy, in evolutionary terms? I mean what are the odds of two advanced intelligent races from two totally different worlds, bearing this much of a physical resemblance to each other? I mean you can even speak my language perfectly!" The alien yips repeatedly at this. "Where to begin? First of all, I'm not speaking whatever your language is, that's a brain gadget too. It makes you understand me in your dialect. Second, nothing about this stupid fucking planet is 'advanced' in any sense of the word, which brings me to the next point, your species' level of understanding of evolution, and the conditions of the universe, is childish." That's a lot to swallow, I suppose. "How do you mean?" He gestures up and down at our bodies with the hand holding his glitter device. It trails brief auroras. "This is the template that works. You don't get tool-builders without free hands. You don't get free hands without evolving in trees. You don't get big brains and tribal cooperation without the correct set of behaviors, nutrition, and so on, and so forth. So yeah, nearly every spacefaring species more or less looks like this." "Do they all act like us, too?" This is blowing my mind, sort of. A little. "I guess. They build cities, they conquer each other, global commercial interests replace government and religion, interplanetary culture arises as a by-product of space-based resource gathering operations. Usually takes a few thousand years. Or the species kills itself. I think it's like twelve percent that make it? I don't know. It's been awhile since school." I find I'm packing my pipe again. "Do you want to sit down?" "What? No, I'm leaving in about ninety seconds." I feel sad. The little voice mourns and wails. "That's too bad. There are so many things I want to know. Are more of you coming?" He shrugs and turns towards his space egg. The side of it opens. I can't see inside it, somehow it's blurry. "Depending on who likes these scans, maybe? If you're lucky, you can be a busboy in one of our hotels. Take it easy, human." "Drive safe," I say, waving. He shakes his head and sighs at me as he climbs back into the shadowy innards of the egg. It closes, silent. I watch in awe as it lifts out of the sand without disturbing a grain, leaving a perfect ovoid impression. It slips into the sky. I lose sight of it when I finally blink. And that's when I remember and start screaming.