By Fiona Mae Villamor
The first time I met an alien, I was mildly disappointed.
For one, he—it—looked just like the rest of us: no slimy skin, no bug-shaped eyes, and no major deformities whatsoever. For another, he didn’t come in a spaceship, at least none that I knew of. He announced his arrival through a mere knock on our door, accompanied by a heartfelt plea and a small canvas bag that he slung across his shoulder.
“Good morning ma’am,” he had said to my mother. “Would you happen to know the quickest way to the city?”
My mother smiled at him. After chiding him jokingly about calling her ma’am, she said, “Of course, dong. Just get a ride to the port and the boats there can take you to the mainland, where you can catch a fast craft headed to the city.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I appreciate it.”
“But our fiesta is in a few days, so you might want to stay for the fun.”
“Thank you, ma’am, but I have to be on my way as soon as possible.” He tipped his hat and went on his way before my mother could ask any more questions.
At that time, I did not tell my mother, for fear that she would rouse something careless, but I already knew that he was an alien. I watched him as he asked for directions and I watched him later on as he circled our little barangay, inspecting everything that he encountered along the way.
It did not take long for the village to notice him. People would call out to him in the midst of fiesta preparations as he walked on our streets.
“Are you from the census, sir?”
“Why don’t you come join us in a meal?”
“What are you doing, walking around under the sun like that?”
“Do you need to go anywhere, sir? I have a trusty ride back at our house.”
“Stay around for the fiesta!”
He always smiled at my neighbors, politely declining their inquiries and offers. From the time he knocked on our doors to the time the sun hid behind the mountains, the alien just roamed around.
On the second day since his arrival, he was already on our streets before anyone rose for the morning—and when fiestas were imminent, people woke up significantly earlier. He inspected what he saw, declined offers of breakfast, and smoothly refused any questions. People had grown used to the sight of his walks, but that didn’t stop the speculations surrounding him to spread. No one knew, for instance, where he had retired for the night.
“He asked me directions to the city,” my mother was telling her friends as we sat together making banderitas in a little hut near the square. “I told him this and that, but he just wandered around for the rest of the day. I wonder what he’s doing.”
“He doesn’t even answer any questions,” one of her friends said. “I say we should let the kapitan question him.”
“There’s no need. My husband says that he hasn’t done anything wrong.” said the barangay captain’s wife.
“Well, should we wait until he does?” one of the women quipped up.
“Nonsense,” my mother said. “I’m sure he means no harm.” she said, waving to the subject of their conversation as he passed their way.
On the third day, the alien didn’t make his usual rounds. In fact, everyone in the village thought he had already gone on his way. I knew he was still nearby, though. So after breakfast, I kissed my mom on the cheek and said that I wanted to play with my neighbor, Karen, today. We want to make some kites, I said, I’ve always wanted to fly a kite.
“Don’t go too far though, ok?” Mother said, giving me a small backpack with some sandwiches and juice.
“Okay.”
With everyone focused on the fiesta, it was easy to slip by unnoticed. There was a little clearing off to the west of our barangay, after some patches of trees and a steep slope up. It was a beautiful place, one that I’ve always considered my safe haven. Today, I had a strong feeling that the alien was seeking refuge there, too.
Sure enough, he was.
“Hello,” I said.
He turned around, looking startled. He was sitting on a mat and his backpack was sprawled beside it. There was an opened lunch box before him, which he was eating out of when I arrived.
“I’m sorry, did I disturb you?”
“Not at all,” the alien said. He looked at me warily, as if I would attack him any second.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just... curious about you.”
The alien didn’t say anything. And when he saw that all I could do was stare at him, he turned his back on me and resumed his meal.
I moved gingerly forward, noticing more and more details about him as I did. In his lunchbox was a perfect balanced meal—any dietician would applaud it. His backpack was filled to the brim with tools, gears, and rations that would help any man last long in the wild. To the common eye, he looked like any other explorer. But I noticed the awkward way he held his utensils, and I noticed his stiff Indian squat, and I noticed the way he never blinked.
“You don’t look comfortable in your own skin,” I said. I was directly behind him now.
“What makes you think so?” He said, still preoccupied with eating.
“I don’t think you’re from here or anywhere near here for that matter.”
He had finished eating and was cleaning up, closing his backpack as he did. He then stood up and looked at me. “Explain yourself,” he said nonchalantly.
I resisted the urge to avoid his gaze. “You did not offer me food, or invite me to eat with you. Everyone here does that.”
I thought he would be angry, or would at least turn his back on me once more, but instead he expressed a rich and hearty laugh. “You are a most uncanny people,” he then said, chuckling. “And you are an even more uncanny little girl.”
I did not find it funny, but nevertheless I laughed with him.
In the next few hours, I learned more and more about the alien. He was lost, and he had lost track of his convoy. They were on their way to a different place but they landed here accidentally. His boss commanded him to investigate and learn more about this place, so he did. But when he came back after a few hours, his people were already gone.
“So what did you find out?” I said, sharing my sandwiches and juices with him a few hours before sunset. “In your investigation, I mean?”
“Well, a lot. I learned that it’s hard to get a signal here, making it extra difficult to communicate with my convoy.” said the alien.
“Is there any way you can find them?”
“I think so,” he said, but not with much confidence. “At first, I thought they were just testing me if I would actually do the job. So I carefully observed your community, giving extra care to find out about everything. But after two days of doing that, there was still no sign of the convoy. And so I retreated here.”
“What do you think your boss wants with our village? Why is he giving you so much time to observe it?” I said, finishing up my juice. As I sipped the last remnants, I reached for another pack.
“The only time this happens is when we’re considering invading it,” he said. When he saw my mouth agape, he waved me off and continued, “It’s usually nothing to worry about. We’ve studied this place before and it never had much to show.”
“So you really are one.”
“What?”
“An alien,” I almost whispered.
“Of course, I am” he said, licking his hands after he finished his sandwich. “What else would I be?”
Since I did not know how to prevent an invasion—or a possible one, for that matter—I did the best thing I could think of. It was highly unlikely that anyone would believe me, so I brought the alien back to the barangay the next day to help with the preparations for the fiesta, hoping someone else would notice his unconventional ways.
The alien was able to immerse in our community well enough, offering a helping hand to anyone who needed it. Since the fiesta was but a day away, everyone—from little Tina to manong Joe—helped out in his or her own little ways and the alien was quickly joining their ranks. There were still some speculations and some unanswered questions, but no one pressed a case and the alien was welcomed graciously.
In spite of all that, I was the only one who noticed. Even with a human body, he spelled tell-tale signs of being from another world. The way he held a hammer was almost without touch, the banderitas he cut always came out perfectly, and he never seemed to grow tired or weary.
Even the sweat on his face glimmered more so than the average Juan, and the way he talked and looked people in the eye was an uncommon sight in our vilage. He still declined invitations of meal, and he offered none in return as well. And although he laughed a hearty laugh at some people’s jokes, he did not do so as frequently as my neighbors.
Yet people loved him, even though he was an outsider.
No one noticed his unusual features, and no one noticed any threat of invasion as well. It was well into the first day of the fiesta and everyone was having a feast and having a grand time. The alien finally accepted our invitation and took his lunch at our place, but afterwards, he disappeared into the crowd, and I saw no sign of him until that evening.
Someone was talking on our makeshift stage and everyone was applauding the line of guys who were also girls as they paraded elegantly in a perfect line. People were scurrying back and forth near the backstage, and the alien was one of them, although he was not doing so because of the pageant.
“What are you doing?” I asked him.
He looked startled. “Nothing,” he said to me.
“You’ve been busy the entire day.”
“It’s the first day of the fiesta.” The last word he said had a slight twang to it.
“True,” I said. “I hope you’re not truly preparing for an invasion.”
He said nothing, so I walked away.
I saw him slip into the woods not long after. Amid the rambunctious applause and music, no one noticed him as he went in. So I disappeared in a similar fashion, carefully tailing him and trying not to be seen.
The alien stopped in the clearing that was my haven, and which was his as well. He was holding up some kind of transmitter device and he was looking wearisome, as if he had aged in just a few minutes. I crouched a few meters away from him, hiding myself in the expanse of foliage readily available to me.
The alien was muttering something under his breath and I noticed that he sounded angry. I inched a little closer to hear better, but what I heard next almost made me jump out of the bush and strike him down.
“Are preparations for the invasion well under way?”
He grew silent for a while after, listening to the person—or alien—on the other end. He nodded gravely and rubbed his eyes.
I half-expected some sort of hologram to appear before him, or even just a beam from the sky that will drop down and summon him from the grounds. But nothing of that kind happened, and he proceeded with just listening to his transmitter, looking more stressed by the minute.
“Are you sure this is the right course of action to take?” he said. “Because if I may appeal sir—”
I stood my ground, and prepared myself for any physical fighting that may happen. I inched even more closer to hear better.
“These people are a friendly race,” he was saying. “They pose no threat to us and they did not even hurt me in any way—”
He was forced silent again.
“Sir, if I may, may I speak to you face to face?”
I was bracing myself for a hologram, a face to appear out of nowhere, or even just a flash of light, but nothing happened. If any, the alien just grew wearier and walked further forward into the clearing.
I couldn’t follow any more without being seen, so I stayed where I was and strained my ears to listen.
“I disagree, sir,” he was saying. “They are a people worth ignoring because they pose no harm and—”
He groaned angrily and motioned to throw the transmitter to the ground, but decided against it in the last minute. He instead paced back and forth endlessly, quickening his pace more and more with every step.
Perhaps it was because of his helpfulness or because I felt sorry for him or because I thought there was still a glimmer of hope for my village, but I stood up without hesitation at that moment, leaving me vulnerable to any attack he might throw at me.
“Hello,” I said to him, moving gingerly into the clearing.
He did not seem surprised this time. “Aren’t you supposed to be at the fiesta?”
“You disappeared during the pageant,” I said.
He said nothing, and continued pacing, tightening his grip on the device.
“So you’re really going to invade us?”
“I’m trying to prevent it,” he said, a little annoyed.
“Why don’t you tell your boss that?” I said, approaching him.
“I’m trying to. There’s no signal.”
“Why don’t you tell him that?”
“There’s no signal.”
I sighed heavily. “Tell him there’s no signal here, so it’s hard to set up base or something. Tell him we don’t have electricity for a significant portion of the day, or that we don’t have banks or that our roads are barely passable. We’re practically useless to invade.”
He just looked at me. “But we could exploit you as a people anyway. We have the technology.”
“That would take a long time. We are a most carefree people, and we can get by with the simplest of pleasures, but it would take a lot of time and effort to try to change us and use us for your bidding. I’m sure there are more fitting places to invade.”
He said nothing.
“Go on then, so we could return to the fiesta,” I said, nudging him.
“You are a child and you know nothing,” he said. “But I will do what you said. It is worth a try.”
The alien disappeared into the trees to talk to his boss, and I waited for him to come back for many hours, but he never did. Even as I returned to the celebration in the village, I could not see an alien face, or any sign that he was there. My mother was worried about me, but she hugged me and sent me home. And as I slept that night, I tried not to worry about the invasion that was about to come, yet I somehow knew that it was never happening, at least not for a long time.
The next few days were a blur. People were wondering where the alien went, but they did so happily and in high hopes that he would reach wherever he needed to be. The fiesta proceeded extravagantly, with lots of good food and good music and good people.
I tried to enjoy it all, but at the end of the festivities, I grew tired. The alien was nowhere in sight, and that should lessen my worries, but the world was now open to the possibilities of more aliens and more invasions and that stressed me.
My mother noticed this. She tried to soothe me and comfort me, but I grew lazy and I ignored her. On a rainy day a few months from the fiesta, she sat down with me on the terrace and brought me some hot milk.
“Are you okay?” she smiled that motherly smile and it made me warm inside. I nodded.
“What’s the matter?” She looked worried.
I looked at her and sighed. I could not hold it in any longer. “Can you keep a secret?”
“Yes, I can,” she said as she smoothed my hair.
“You remember that man that arrived here a few days before the fiesta, the one who asked directions to the city?” I looked at her squarely in the eyes. “He was an alien.”
My mother chuckled and motioned for me to drink the milk. “Of course he was, child.” She said, looking out into the rain. “He was not from this place.”