QOD: What did you say to the alien?

That Burser boy was always one for hauling odd things home. Joe, his name were. He’d find him a frog with an extra leg, maybe, or a fish with two heads. Sorta got to be a joke ‘round these parts. If they was something strange hanging about, Joe’d be finding it. Kept on even when he was growed, and you never could tell who or what he’d be bringing into town next. Might be a 39-pound midget lady, or one of them, whatchacallit, albinos. Maybe some feller talking a language nobody could understand, or a guy with his beard down to his knees what could do handstands. Anything or anybody off kilter just seemed to get drawn to Joe.

Anyhow, there was this one time he come into the diner with his newest find. Looked like a lady, sort of, with hair coming down past her shoulders. Tinged blue, that hair, which ain’t a big deal in a city, but it was a standout here. Her skin was smooth as cream, almost too smooth, and once I seen her hair flip back and I’s right certain I seen a ear what were no more than some kind of flower bud. Sorta squeaked when she walked.

Now, I ain’t got nothing against folks as got handed short on this or that. Lord knows, I got me a twitchy elbow of my own, gets popping, and chewing pain down my arm ever so often. Still, this Dwah, as Joe named her in his introduction, were something beyond queer. For one thing, I never did see that woman, or whatever she were, take one single bite of food. Didn’t talk none, neither. Had her a slit under her nose, but I’m thinking it weren’t no mouth at all. Never did see it open, and that seemed right queer.

Joe took her all around, and them big violet eyes of hers went roving here and there, like she was looking for something. One morning I seen her over to Edwards’ place, without Joe, and she were chopping away at this big old rock sitting at the bottom of his pasture. Some says it were one of them meteorites, a sort of stone come falling from the sky. Don’t know about that none, but I walks right up to that Dwah and asks what she’s doing. She give me a glance but don’t say nothing, then goes back to chipping away at that rock.

“Look here,” I says. “Folks got them a right to do with their own property, which means you ain’t go no right to do with somebody else’s rock. Maybe look just like a old rock to you, but it ain’t yourn. You hear me?”

She don’t say a word back to me, and she goes on chipping, slipping the bits into some sort of pocket on this green jumper she got on.

“Look here, Dwah,” I says. “We seen one queer thing after another, what with that Joe’s propensity for finding oddlings. But I’m thinking it ain’t so much that you’s an oddling, as that you just don’t fit in here at all. Whatcha got to say about that?”

She turns them violet eyes on me then, and that little slit below her nose gets a bit of a curve. Who knows, maybe she’s laughing at me. I gets my arms akimbo and narrows my eyes. “I’m thinking it might be best if you was to make yourself scarce. You hear?”

She gives me the tiniest nod then, and goes back to chipping away on that stone what some say fell from heaven, though I don’t pretend to know as to the truth of that. Folks get stories going sometimes that ain’t got one speck of truth.

Couple days later I see Joe, and he ain’t trailing his new friend along.

“What happened to that Dwah of yourn, Joe?”

He shrugged them big shoulders of his. “Oh, she did some kinda repair to that ship of hers, and then she gives me a wave, climbs in, and off she goes.”

“Off she goes where?”

He waves a hand at the sky. “Up is all I know.”

So that were that, and all I got to say is I slept right good that night.