Alien Principles

Nolan kept a notebook of scientific things. Wherever he went, he would form hypotheses about human nature and the selfish chemical desires that drove them to do what they did. None of his friends knew how he earned his living, and if anyone asked him, he would cleverly evade the subject and draw their attention to something else. Several people, if you were to ask them, would suppose him to be of some profession or another, drawing their own conclusions, perhaps from something he said to them once, but such cases were purely imagined. 

Nolan had no family, and the house he lived in was queer. It was not queer in the sense that there was something obviously unusual about it; rather, it simply seemed a little too cold for comfort, a little too clean for daily use, and just ‘off ’.

Still, he did have friends, and it was with those friends that he was strolling down a sunny street one fine morning, breathing in the scent of just-fallen rain. The stooping willow trees down by the river were mostly hidden by old houses with brightly colored doors and muddy flowerbeds. The corner of Nolan’s mouth twitched whenever he passed a particularly happy-looking house, and inwardly, he longed to smile at daffodils, just to see if they would smile back. 

But he kept his thoughts to himself, just as Gl’osein would want him to. “You’re here to learn about them,” Gl’osein had said, “Not so they can learn about you. Don’t make too much of an impression, or it will affect how they think. The data must be as raw as we can get it.”

As he walked down the slick sidewalk with his friends’ small talk as background music in his mind, Nolan looked over at Jean. Her long, strawberry blond waves were interrupted by a streak of aqua-blue. She was one of Nolan’s more lively companions. On his right, Cash’s dark chops, shot through with grey, framed a deep, strong face.

Nolan closed his eyes for a moment, imagining what it would be like to live among these people normally, without having to pretend. To be an ordinary human. 

“There’s a path down to the river up ahead,” remarked Jean, bringing Nolan back to reality. He looked up ahead.

“I think that’s the one we’re going down,” he replied. As they veered toward it, a cloud split apart, and in half a second, a huge rainbow flooded the sky with color. 

“Ohhh,” breathed Jean, looking up in wonder.

“Well now,” said Cash, “It’s not every day you see a rainbow that clear and bright.” 

Nolan just grinned. He imagined someone standing inside a rainbow, turning their head this way to see the world all in red, that way to see the world all in green, and so on. Then, he thought of his job, and his smile faded. 

“What sort of chemical reaction in the brain,” he wondered aloud, “makes a person isolate beautiful things from everything else?”

Jean gave him a weird look from the corner of her eye. 

“I have no idea,” she said flatly.

They started down the path, weeping willows dripping tears of rain on their shoulders. At the bank of the river, a small dock stretched out over the shallow area. At the end of the dock bobbed a small boat, which rocked and swayed as the three friends climbed in. Cash took the oars, and they were off, drifting down the winding, emerald river.

Nolan watched the willows reach out over the water, only to fall behind as the boat made its way dutifully along. He reacted to the conversation; he jotted down notes about human behavior in his pocket notepad, but mostly, he pondered. He pondered the next steps his civilization would take in reaching out to humankind. He pondered Gl’osein’s directions to him, and why he, of all the interplanetary anthropologists, was chosen as one of the elite five sent undercover to study Earth. 

Most of all, he pondered how long it would be before he could give up analysing and studying and just be. He had spent years learning about cultures on different planets so that he could be closer to people. Now, though, he felt as if a curtain was drawn between him and the world, making everything feel cold and distant. Like he was living a borrowed life.

A voice broke into his thoughts. Cash and Jean were having an increasingly passionate discussion about human nature. Seeing a prime opportunity for observation, Nolan tuned in. 

“All I’m saying,” said Cash, “Is that anything a person does is at least partially founded on selfishness.”

“How can you say that?” said Jean, “If a father saves his daughter from drowning, you can’t possibly call that selfish!”

“I’m not calling it selfish,” replied Cash, “Not 100 percent, anyway. But even if that father’s got some goodwill in his heart, part of the reason he’s saving that girl is because she makes him happy. Which makes it at least a tiny bit selfish.”

“He’d be saving his daughter because he loves her,” argued Jean. That was when Nolan joined the conversation.

“Isn’t love one of the most selfish things a person can do?” he said. He didn’t really believe it, but he figured it could draw out some interesting reactions. He wasn’t disappointed.

“Whoever told you that,” said Jean sharply, “Has never loved a person in their life.”

“Well then, I wonder what your definition of love is,” said Cash, “Because the way I see it, not a single relationship is made for the sole purpose of making someone else happy. You aim to make yourself happy also, which adds an element of--”

“Selfishness, I know,” interrupted Jean, “If you would call it that, which I wouldn’t.”

“Then what would you call it?” asked Nolan. Jean thought for a moment.

“Natural desire,” she concluded.

“Because…?” prompted Nolan.

“If we just needed to survive, we could do with much less than we have,” said Jean, “Does that mean that wanting pillows and indoor plumbing is greedy? No, because if we can have so much more than survival, if we can have life, luxury, why shouldn’t we? It’s the same with love. We naturally long for human contact, for relationships, so I don’t think I could ever call a healthy, two-sided relationship ‘selfish’.”

“That’s a fair point,” nodded Cash, “But I think you’re looking at it the wrong way. When I said ‘selfish’, I didn’t mean ‘greedy’. There’s a difference.”

“Enlighten me,” said Jean.

“Well, selfishness is pretty much what you said,” replied Cash, “Human desire. Things we go after for our own benefit. Greed is a whole different story -- that’s more like what you were thinking, when you’re not satisfied with more than enough.”

“Ahh,” said Jean. There was a silence. After a while, Jean noticed a dragonfly sitting on her ankle, and an exchange of lighter tone commenced. 

Nolan resumed pondering. 

After a good while, Cash propelled the boat back to shore, and the three of them clambered out. A short walk later, Cash stood with one foot in his truck, cramming in some last-minute conversation. When he finally drove away, Nolan and Jean were left standing together by the willow trees.

“We should get out like this more,” said Nolan.

“Yeah,” snorted Jean, “Nothing quite like floating down a river, debating philosophy with a couple of cynics.”

Her last remark made Nolan chuckle, but inside, he was crying.