Part I: In Which I Land and Immediately Regret It

By Zog-9, Xenologist First Class, Aboard the Good Ship Inconvenience

Esteemed Councilors,

Picture, if your gelatinous eminences will, a creature of refined intellect—myself—descending from the crystalline silence of the void onto a sphere so saturated with water that even the air is wet. I speak, of course, of Earth, a planet whose inhabitants have solved the problem of universal hydration by simply breathing soup.

My first act upon touching down in a place they call “New Jersey” was to sneeze. My second was to apologize to a metal box on wheels that had honked at me. The box, I later learned, was not sentient; the honk was merely its way of saying “Move, thou three-eyed trespasser.” I moved. I have been moving ever since, for Earthlings are a restless tribe, forever fleeing the spot they occupied five minutes ago in search of a spot exactly like it, only with better parking.

Imagine, if you can, a world where the very atmosphere conspires to drown you in politeness. One moment I am gliding through the vacuum in dignified solitude; the next, I am ankle-deep in a viscous substance called “humidity” while a yellow chariot labeled “TAXI” attempts to rearrange my skeletal structure. The driver, a gentleman whose eyebrows had clearly unionized, leaned out and inquired whether I required “a hospital or a priest.” I assured him I required neither, only a towel and a map that did not insist on rotating itself every time I blinked. He charged me forty-seven dollars and a promise of my firstborn. I paid in what I believed to be local currency—three shiny buttons and a heartfelt apology. He accepted the buttons. Earthlings, I have discovered, are suckers for novelty.

I staggered forth into the wilderness of asphalt and neon, where every surface glistens like the inside of a snail’s daydream. Signs screamed at me in a dialect called “English,” which appears to be Latin after it has been run over by a truck and left for dead. One particularly insistent placard declared: “WELCOME TO NEW JERSEY—GARDEN STATE.” I searched in vain for the garden. I found instead a parking lot the size of a small moon, paved with the crushed dreams of commuters and decorated with a single, heroic dandelion pushing its way through concrete like a drunk philosopher seeking daylight.

And the smell! Councilors, the olfactory assault would fell a lesser being. It is a bouquet of hot tar, fried onions, and something the locals call “Eau de Turnpike,” which I suspect is distilled from the tears of lost souls who missed Exit 13A. My olfactory ridges curled like parchment in a flame. I sneezed again. A passing child handed me a tissue emblazoned with cartoon dinosaurs. I accepted it gravely, for one must observe the local rites of snot diplomacy.

Thus began my exile among the damp ones. I have since learned that “New Jersey” is not, as I first assumed, a penal colony, but rather a sovereign territory where the chief export is attitude and the state bird is the middle finger. The inhabitants pride themselves on their resilience, which consists mainly of complaining about the weather while wearing shorts in January. I admire their spirit. I also admire the way they pronounce “coffee” as though it were a minor deity: “caw-fee.” More on that sacrament in a future dispatch.

For now, know this: I am alive, I am damp, and I have already mastered the art of jaywalking with the nonchalance of a native. If the High Council requires further proof of my suffering, I enclose a photograph of my boots. They are growing moss.

Yours in perpetual motion,

Zog-9

P.S. If anyone back home asks, tell them the third eye is just for reading fine print. And parking tickets.

Next week: Part II – On the Peculiar Institution of Clothing

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