A Lesson On Love From A Savage Alien - Short Story

September 3 2074 was that significant day in history, the galactic federation had finally decided humans are not a primitive species and decided to reach out, this immediately after we managed to get our emissions in check by running the planet mostly on renewable energy and keeping world hunger in check.

They sent an emissary with the message. The being introduced itself as Cx-231 on all news platforms around the world in a live broadcast from Egypt as that is where the last galactic explorers made contact with Earth. It had no limbs and no skin; it was just an irregular liquid with a glowing nucleus in a floating bubble.

The federation had kept in constant communication with the UN until an agreement was reached for the absorption of Earth into the galactic federation. On February 21, 2076 the first warp gates were opened and Earth opened her doors to other life forms, it was like something out of Star Trek, there were several aliens coming in as tourists, they all had translators equipped into their suits to help them communicate with us and they were fascinated by the simplest things. Some had never seen a palm tree before, others cowboy shoes, our technology seemed so primitive to a lot of them while others were fascinated by it.

I applied for the position of space greeter with the UN, it was the fancy title given to the tour guides of extra-terrestrials. After a month of training I resumed work to meet my first tourist. He was a hulking fellow of about 7 feet; he had had a humanoid shape with five eyes and little trunk like an elephant’s, his skin was a shade of yellow and he was surprisingly docile, the sci-fi movies are not the best to build expectations off of.

His name was Xvubilo and he fancied himself an adventurer. Earth was his eight stop on his tour of all civilizations in the Milky Way and he was intent on seeing all there was to see on our ‘little blue world’ as he called it. He was surprised at how hard we try to divide ourselves when we looked very much the same, his planet is the size of Jupiter and has three intelligent species sharing it and they have found a way to coexist.

“Of all the species I have encountered, humans are the most polarizing. How you are able to love and hate each other so much at the same time is something I find difficult to comprehend.” He said.

A being I had judged as savage from his physical appearance spoke like a student of Gandhi. That encounter put things in perspective for me; the greatest threat to humans had never been subjugation from outer space, but the hatred we display for one another.

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Thanks for reading. Image used courtesy of pixabay.com.