The Rain that Hammered like Chatting Mice
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John Willis looked at the magic sausage in his hands and felt sneezy.
He walked over to the window and reflected on his sleepy surroundings. He had always loved sunny Moscow with its loose, large lakes. It was a place that encouraged his tendency to feel sneezy. John was an oddball from outside this world but he belonged here more than anywhere else in the universe so far as he could tell.
His name is not important; there are many thousands like him scattered throughout the galaxy. We call them aliens, but they come from somewhere very different and we cannot even agree on how to pronounce their names.
The only real difference between us and these creatures is that our powers lie mainly in manipulating matter rather than energy: the use of force against nature for ends that do not need further explanation in order to get results. But this does mean we can build vast structures in our worlds that they cannot imagine, let alone construct or destroy.
But the one thing we cannot do—and this is something we must never forget because it often tempts me towards fatal arrogance, such as when I have eaten Russian sausages before lunchtime, especially with tomato sauce on toast—is make friends.
I have made several hundred friends in my time—some of them would call it hundreds of acquaintances if pressed—but most people find alien life forms quite creepy, sometimes deeply so. Most people will remain unimpressed unless you can prove beyond doubt that you’re harmless (which almost all of us are), interesting, amusing, or just plain normal.
Any combination of those things is enough to convince most ordinary humans that perhaps they should accept your presence and talk to you about themselves.
This is another reason why humans dislike us so much: every single time aliens appear on Earth and start making polite small talk nobody ever buys any cars and everybody gets irritated. And then there’s also the matter of the fear and apprehension that comes whenever new aliens arrive, especially in groups.
The same holds true for entire species, although sometimes we manage to impress them after decades, centuries, or millennia.
Even for highly evolved and wise beings such as the Xenos, who was once as human as anyone else, it took them eons upon eons simply to persuade the inhabitants of ancient Earth that they should coexist without killing each other.
Humans still haven’t gotten used to it: since our first encounter with their planet, they’ve been fleeing from us in great numbers like cockroaches in a dark room where some light has suddenly gone out. Their response makes me laugh, honestly.
They really ought to stay back and think things through instead, especially as their brains don’t work on alien principles anyway. Anyway, this is what it means to be an alien around here.
You are either extremely popular, in which case everything happens at light speed and it feels as though nothing has happened for years; or you are merely tolerated until finally, you turn up dead somewhere. So let me repeat myself again, just in case. Stay safe!
Russian sausages made me feel funny inside, but they were yummy and I loved eating them. On the rare occasions when someone actually understood me, I liked them too.
But let me say straight off that there are two kinds of people who do not understand me—and the first kind doesn’t make mistakes like biting into a slice of chocolate cake and expecting to see a supernova in the middle of the table.
But if they happen to have some spare time available and want to make sure that all the aliens in their area meet unpleasant deaths before morning, they would be best advised not to ask me for help or advice, even if they’re desperate. Just look the other way while I smash everything you know to bits!
On the whole, however, I prefer a cozy chat with somebody nice, intelligent, and curious about what it is like to be like me. Once they realize I’m not going to explode on sight, I make lots of good friends, especially when they open a beer for me…
There is nothing particularly special about John Willis personally, except maybe his height, and although he’s a bit weird sometimes, this doesn’t make him any less attractive. John has short blond hair and blue eyes. Although his features might lead people to describe him as cute, this isn’t precisely true.
It is much better to use the word handsome to describe him. In fact, for a member of his race, the English language is entirely inadequate when it comes to describing individuals of his gender.
Men from another star system in the Milky Way discovered that only recently by accident, after years of trying to work out where the differences in appearance lay. Our ancestors tend to stick together and keep the males in their own separate groups so there aren’t many chances to examine them closely.
They came to the conclusion that members of their own species are not identical either. A female can look completely different from a male, which is not the case for our people. There may be slight variations, but none significant enough to justify distinguishing sexes. For most women, anyway…
Anyway, apart from his appearance, John is friendly and polite, as well as clearly intelligent and capable of performing astonishingly dangerous feats. He likes to share all this information with strangers because he thinks it helps build trust between strangers, which is something he doesn’t have much experience with.
His friendliness was infectious during my first visit to New York, for example, although I suspect some of it might have stemmed from having spent over twenty-five hours trapped in a lift with me, not knowing whether I was going to eat him or not.
I didn’t attack the poor guy after all, although I did frighten him into letting me off with an easy warning. How could he possibly have known? I hardly looked menacing! Nevertheless, it helped cement a friendship and I learned a lot from John, which enabled me to start planning my next trip around the solar system.
At last, someone who wasn’t afraid of me! This makes sense. After all, nobody else has had very long to get to know me properly yet.
As soon as we went back to sleep again, though, everybody got busy building space stations for us to live in. We’ll learn how to deal with each other gradually. That seems sensible. Let’s give this thing called civilization a little more time to mature…
***
John Willis loves jazz music. He’d play all day if it were allowed. He also enjoys football but somehow finds himself constantly involved in arguments on both sides. It’s amazing how similar these activities are.
Jazz combines melody with rhythm to form one big complex structure, while football involves two teams trying to kick the ball past the opposition player in order to score goals. Both require a great deal of skill. The other similarity lies in the fact that all sports fans have more knowledge than anyone who hasn’t watched or played themselves.
And I mean real knowledge, not just opinions based on TV broadcasts, radio commentary, newspaper reports, and anything else you find lying around your house. No amount of research will convince them otherwise.
Very often they think they already know all about everything and that those who disagree with them are either idiots or liars. They tell everyone who listens exactly why their favorite team should win because they’ve spent more time studying the match rules, checking the referee’s report from the previous year’s game, and reading commentaries in advance than anybody else.
They know stuff that is totally irrelevant but which they’re absolutely certain is important.
They speak their minds bluntly without bothering to check what they really mean. These people tend to shout at the television whenever they don’t agree with things happening on the screen. I see no reason for this unless they want to draw attention away from their ignorance and lack of education.