Danny Miller

The spaceship loomed over the white-and-blue marble that was Earth, home of the humans. Zlarn peeked through the small window where they were stowed away. Even from here, they could see its vibrancy, its beauty, just like the clips they’d gotten back home. Zsirak, the worker who’d smuggled Zlarn onboard, approached him,

“Alright, I can’t bring you any further without security asking what you’re doing, but I talked with the pilot, and we can beam you down now”, said Zsirak, gruffly, his emerald eyes narrowed in disgust, frustrated by Zlarn’s presence.

“Yes, that’ll be quite alright” said Zlarn, as they were grabbed by the clawed hand of Zsirak and dragged to the exit chute. “Just don’t panic, don’t give yourself away, and do not get me in any trouble”, said Zsirak, before locking the chute door and pressing a button, causing the floor to give way underneath Zlarn, and they were lowered to the surface.

The first thing that they noticed was the colour, vibrant green all around, with pockets of colour coming up from the plants, like tiny galaxies placed atop tiny stems. The sun shone through the tall plants in a mesmerising display of this planet’s beauty. Their knowledge of Earth culture and language was very vague, but Zsirak had left them with a disguise kit to cover up their green skin and claws. Opening the bag, Zlarn found a long coat, gloves, hat, sunglasses and face wrap, as well as an id card in a human language, with a note taped to it, reading ‘Name: Daniel (Danny) Miller, Sex: Male, Age: 37, Birth Location: Melbourne, Australia’. Zlarn pocketed the note in the coat and stared at the card, it was faded so that the image wasn’t really distinct, but it mesmerised them, even through the sunglasses, the card looked too bright, too new, for them, but it was also something more, a chance to be someone new, who lived a new life, in a new way. Zlarn decided then and there that while on Earth, he was Danny, regular human.

The plant-filled area was apparently a gathering spot for humans, as many of them walked through among the larger plants on stone paths. They looked so strange up close, eerily familiar, with their bipedal stride and expressive faces, but so different as well, with their different skin tones and fleshy phalanges. One wrinkled human approached Danny, with a full mouth of teeth showing, and said something in his human language. He didn’t catch most of it, but one word seemed to be a greeting, “Hello”, when Danny tried to indicate his lack of understanding

He made a rhythmic, guttural sound and walked off, leaving Danny to try whispering that word, Hello under his mask. It was a strange word, not meant for his body, but he liked it; it was his first piece of human language.

Danny spent many hours wandering the area, which he determined to be a park of some sort, but filled with the dense plant-life that he’d seen photos of coming from places where humans didn’t live. He began picking up other words, “Bye, See-ya, o’clock, please” all seemed to be understandable, but the finer points of human language was slippery, although he could recite them from memory fairly well in case he needed to interact with a human, which didn’t happen often, as he often just wandered in circles, trying to understand the things that humans do. They certainly liked looking at things, pointing at things, making those strange noises, smiling, that was a concept he found off-putting, the way humans treated their face like a some sort of decorated weapon, to show teeth and eye contact and match people was a good thing, sometimes, and then shout and eat and breath with that face moments later, the Garnestri certainly didn’t do this, their faces were too rigid, while human faces morphed like clay. As the sun began to set, Danny watched as people left, and new ones did not arrive. He was disappointed, since he didn’t trust himself to explore the grander expanse of this settlement, but didn’t want to wait however long until daytime came again. But wait, he did, lying down on a bed of grass under the trees, he removed his sunglasses and looked at the world again through his natural eyes. He was immediately taken aback by the brightness of it all, the greens were so vibrant, even without the Sun, and each speck of colour stood out like a torch. He lay there for hours, taking in the sights of plants, of the hazy sky, of the unfamiliar stars, and the moon. In his trance, he didn’t notice a young human male lying down beside him until he spoke,

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” said the man,

“Hello, yes”, He replied, his heart racing as he spoke, “Beautiful”

They lay there together in silence for a few minutes before Danny remembered his uncovered face. He quickly put his glasses back on and adjusted his mask.

“You got a home to go to?” the man said, “Probably not, but I doubt you’ve been out here long, come on, I’ll show you my spot.”, and he stood up and started walking away. Unsure of what else to do, Danny followed him to a small stream with a stone bridge spanning the top. The man gestured to a small door under the bridge, behind a pile of refuse, it had a faded yellow sign with a lightning bolt on it.

“This is home, it used to be a maintenance room or something, but nobody ever comes in anymore.” The man said and walked up to the door to open it.

“Oh, my bad manners, I’m Jessie”, he pointed one of his flesh-fingers at his chest, “Jessie”, then pointed at Danny. “You?”

“Danny, Hello”, he replied

“So you know some English, that’ll make this easier. Danny, mate, you’re gonna get arrested if you just watch people all day. I saw you wandering. The police are gonna scoop you up, chuck ya somewhere they can watch you.” Said Jessie, while making simple hand motions that mostly got the message across. Danny panicked, and he felt his skin tightening as he realised he could be caught, so he gambled, as he had gambled to get here in the first place, and took off his glasses and mask.

Jessie’s eyes widened as Danny revealed his hard, angled green face, took a few steps back, towards the door to his hideout, but caught himself before he screamed.

“Mate, you can’t just do that to a guy,” he said, staying alert, clearly feeling threatened. Danny stood there, letting him take in his face, and feeling the weight of his ruse fall upon him. How could he have been so stupid to think he could just live like a human? He was all sorts of wrong, and any human would see him as a freak, no matter what.

“So, what are you? A lizard-man?” said Jessie, but Danny was still frozen in place,

“Where are you from?”, and all Danny could do was point up at the stars.

Two weeks had soon passed between Danny and Jessie, Jessie sharing his resources and writing down everything he could about Danny. The constant examination felt terrible, just a list of every way he was different, but Jessie was also teaching him. Teaching him English, apparently a very common human language, and as Jessie put it, “All you could need in this day, everyone has to know a bit just to get by,” and they became friends, in a way, as close as their species could ever come. Danny even began smiling, although it looked strange, and Jessie laughed every time, which was another strange human thing, but they could co-exist for now. Danny learned a lot about humans, too. For example, they need to eat a lot, compared to him, but they could also do so many more things than he could, like singing and laughing. Jessie had a strange instrument called a guitar that he would play on the bridge for currency, in the form of little metal disks and coloured sheets, on which he sustained himself. And Danny told him all the things that he found different about Earth, like the colour and the vibrancy, when back home, the world was desaturated and dim. For an alien in a foreign world, things seemed to be ok, even in a place like this, Earth was vibrant and lively and beautiful. Danny began to write, at first it was just notes, in his own language, then poetry, then working with Jessie to write in English. It was hard work, but it was an art they could share, in their simple existence, despite their differences.

Eventually, after a few more weeks of living with Jessie, Danny wrote a letter home and sent it to a place he knew was connected to his kind, with a simple sign off, -Danny.