Lost in an Alien World

I cannot even remember what my people look like. It has been so many years since they left me here, for some purpose unknown to me. For years I told myself they had a plan, that perhaps they wanted me to spy on these human beings I have come to despise with all my heart. But why then would they just fling me from their ship, naked and alone? I can no longer convince myself they must have had a good reason to leave me here. They must have just hated me to leave me with these pathetic, barbaric, greedy, self-centred creatures. Perhaps I was wrong about my own people; perhaps they are more like the creatures that dominate this planet than I had ever before cared to admit.

The truth is, I no longer know. I remember little from my childhood on my own planet, among my own people. ‘My own people . . .’ What nonsense. I don’t have a people. I am alone. Thanks to my shapeshifting abilities I could at least blend in wherever I wanted, and, having taken the likeness of one of them, I am accepted here on earth, to a degree, but I am not and will not ever be one of them.

Sometimes, for a fleeting instant, I wish I was, though. I have given up hope that my own kind will ever come back for me--likely I have been forgotten--but, worst of all, I seem to have lost my shapeshifting powers after many years of disuse. I am not one of these ‘humans’: they face me with a strained politeness, selling me goods and answering my queries, but sensing I am not like them. And even if my own kind comes back they will mistake me for one of these monkey-like people, me looking like one of them, talking like one of them, acting like them in many ways. But what else can they expect? It is blend in or be destroyed. Yet why then do I feel that by becoming like them, I have been destroyed?

If I were truly a spy they should praise me for my ability to blend in with a people I knew nothing about, whose ways seemed utterly alien to me, though that was no big surprise. Although I indeed blend in somewhat, I have not and will not completely fit in, but this news should hardly startle them. I was not trained, I was not conditioned, I was not even briefed, nor willing. Unprepared like that, I was just left to die. I never had a chance. Maybe the sole reason my kind put me here is to make me realise that you are alone in the universe, and the cosmos does not care about you or anybody.

I’m not sure if I even miss my own planet anymore. Perhaps I now hate my kind as much as I do these treacherous homo sapiens. Planets themselves are fine; it’s the creatures that inhabit them that destroy its beauty and corrupt their peace, until there is nothing left but a crawling mass of organisms who tell themselves they have elevated themselves in some way above the other organisms that roam the planet, on land, under water and in the air. These humans cannot fly, cannot breathe underwater, are not nimble, not fast, have no natural weapons to speak of, and are not nearly as smart as they make themselves out to be, yet they are dominant. They are ants with a God complex. Oh, how I hate them. I hate them, I HATE them. I just want to get away from them, but I have to look upon and communicate with them every day, and they look so hideous, and communicate so disastrously.

It dizzies me to think that a species that can hardly do any of the simplest things right have built many things I would never judge them to be capable of. It’s the smartest, most driven five percent that gets things done and develops new technologies--not that it does them any good. I have no idea what the other monkeys are here for. Yet I am now one of these other monkeys, and I have to live with them and watch them do everything in the worst way possible. I am not driven; sometimes I don’t even feel alive anymore. I can hardly get out of bed, so I will definitely never do anything of note. But that is for the best, because I like to stick to the shadows, letting most of them remain unaware of my existence, thus preventing them from tormenting me with their stupidity and treachery. But even in the shadows, hidden away, life among them feels unbearable, so intensely stressful it can sneak up and choke me at any moment.

I still feel occasionally that when they look upon me they will see me for what I truly am; the smart ones because of their intellect, the stupid ones through some primordial sense, essentially sniffing me out like a dog. And the dumb ones are the most dangerous, because they come in large, unthinking packs and when they feel threatened they gang up and destroy the object of their malice without the hunted being able to reason with the hunters. I must remain invisible. They seem to do whatever comes to mind, and let themselves be led by their fears and their primal urges, the worst of their urges only barely controlled, and the worst of their fears taking over and controlling them in an instant. Alone they are stupid and harmless, but joined they make a fearsome enemy. I know this just as governments know this. But they can please them temporarily and pit them against each other as desired, whereas I can only hide.

It is hard pretending to be one of them. They slave away without too much complaint, accepting the ‘modern world’ as it is, but I simply cannot do it. This world, this race is destroying me, with their countless rules and demands and their obsession with reproduction and money. Even during my short time here I have seen the streets grow more crowded and the cost of living go up. There is hardly time to visit nature, pretend you’re alone, and relax. There is hardly time to feel at peace. And everything is expensive. They want you busy, productive, earning them more wealth and power, always contending with the other groups of humans in the world. They are never satisfied. They are all the same yet they fight one another constantly, and the little man has to pay the price. They want you busy, productive, but when you burn out they are perplexed and send you to a therapist. It is this one’s job to get you better again, so you can once more pick up a shovel and slave away, and be busy and productive, just the way they like you.

What pathetic creatures they are, to first invent such a system and then fight it half-heartedly, all the while creating more and more suffering--the thing they do best. I should not be surprised in any way that I am nothing like them, but being in the minority, alien outcast or no, tends to make you feel that you are the crazy one.

But perhaps I am. Sometimes I just want to kill them all, and at other occasions I get the urge to lead the small-minded people into rebellion by playing on their fears and primal urges. But I lack the energy. I am constantly stressed out by life in this world, among these creatures, and though I hate to admit it, they have won: although I feel infinitely more superior, they have defeated my spirit. I no longer know who I am. I am not even sure I want to know anymore. My own people have forsaken me, and I will never be one of these humans, but the truth is I do not want to be. Becoming like them, so greedy, so naïve, so deluded, so easily manipulated, living such empty, stressful lives, trying so hard to focus on the good things that they foolishly accept the bad like it’s of no consequence. They are utterly blind to their predicament and most just continue the void that is their lives meekly and unquestioningly. I will never understand why. I only know that am a lost soul, not a part of anything, a powerless spectator, bound to suffer until I finally decide to end it once and for all, and with my last breath curse this species that thinks itself the master of everything, but whose empty lives mean nothing.