The Autobiography Of An Alien

Chapter 6 - Earth Customs

Draft #31 - Earth Customs

Earth is quite the spectacular sight, though Kohgrash assures me it is nothing special. I suppose that one who has lived most of their life on one planet would certainly get used to its traits and quirks. However, the simple fact that their planet has quirks astounds me. It is like it is alive. The curious thing about it is that it does not have any sort of Spirit living within it. It simply is. And yet...

***

The first time he had gone to Earth had been under less than desirable circumstances.

Yes, he was excited to go to his dearest friend's planet - what sort of planet fostered the growth of such hardy, spirited little creatures, anyway? - but he knew that the time spent there would be shadowed by the unyielding fact that he'd have to leave Kohgrash there. There was no telling if the little human would ever want to see him again after he left. If that were the case, Rulshkka could not blame him.

After all, he had abducted his species in the first place.

Still, maybe it had been foolish to expect such a warm welcome. Normally, the planets he visited knew of his arrival and celebrated his presence. Never had he needed to send a declaration that he was arriving in peace and to please not shoot them out of the sky, thank you!

Instead of feasts and parades in his honor, he was met with scorn, scowls, and outright hostility. Sure, they were almost never to his face - he was rather intimidating to humans, he knew - but they were everywhere he looked instead. The Internet, so similar to his planet's wire and yet, not, was the go-to place to find gossip about him. Some of it was hilarious.

Vokkra Rulshkka, maker of pyramids? Kohgrash had to explain that one to him in-between gasping breaths of laughter.

Alien race: all you need to know had countless tidbits of information on his species that were all very wrong.

There were 'memes,' videos, pictures, texts, and everything else Rulshkka could think of, all relating to him, his ship, his planet, and his people. It was all very overwhelming.

Some of it was not so funny, though.

They called for justice for his actions. Rulshkka was ironing out the kinks of the treaty - reparations could not make up for the fact that some human lives had been lost on his planet, in transit, or otherwise - but some called for his head instead. Some of the hostility had ebbed away over the months he had remained on his friend's planet, but he knew that it existed, simmering in the blood of those who were wronged by his people.

He, not for the first time, wished that the Cords had never been invented.

But by the time he had left the planet, uncertain as to when - if ever - he would see Kohgrash again, he had learned much about Earth. Things that he would've never been able to learn had he not stepped foot on the planet.

Humans were... quirky. He knew that, to some extent, of course. Kohgrash was not like the normal human - though he wasn't sure if there was a baseline they could compare to, as all humans were rather... odd - and he experienced through him, up close and personal, what humans liked to decide what to do. Sometimes, it was expected, like nodding at someone as they walked by on the street. And sometimes, it was not so expected, like jumping out of the blue to frighten someone because they had, what they called, 'hiccups.'

Rulshkka had never experienced these hiccups. Spirits, he hadn't even known Kohgrash could sneeze until he had done it the one time they were getting his portrait painted.