Explain

“Explain.” The word I now dread most. Before this I was a teacher; explaining things was my job. This is how a cell works. Here is our evolutionary tree. The three types of rock are igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. Explaining things to children takes time and patience, but they learn, grow, and eventually become full-fledged members of society, ready to consume content, post asinine opinions online, and forget everything I’ve taught them. The circle of life.

“Explain.” I shudder. The inquiring alien is a hulking mass of tentacles and eyes, wearing a crown of nebulae. Its sceptre is made of pure energy, its garments are sewn from cosmic dust. It blinks, and its eyes flutter like a crowd wave at a baseball game. In the time it takes to complete the blink, cosmoses flare into and out of existence. I still struggle with seeing time this way, from the top down. 

Explain? You want to know about the weird time here? Imagine yourself in the mirror. You look good today, nose, eyes, normal human anatomy. Now imagine the mirror also shows you the back of your head and the view from the ground when you stand on it. You can see your muscles, your skeleton, what you’ve had to eat today. Simultaneously. That’s life in this alien dimension. The mind reels.

“Explain!” I can’t hold it off any longer. We launch into our eternal back-and-forth ritual. A human invention sits in front of me, this time a comb. It can be anything they’ve dug up over the years, broken tile, a soccer ball, a DVD of the seventh season of ‘Frasier.’ “This is a comb,” I say. “It’s for styling one’s hair. People use them to untangle knots, too. This one is made of plastic, in a country called China, that’s in those little gold letters there. This comb is black, probably disposable. Human beings love to throw things away, and do it with relish.”

“Explain. They style their hair, then dispose of this? Why? It’s a perfectly good . . . Comb, you called it.”

“Explain. That’s all you ever say to me. Look,” I say, running my hand along my bald head. “I didn’t use the things much, didn’t have much need. Give me something I know about. Action movies. Video games. A DVD from the eighth season of Frasier. You know, pop culture. I’m no historian.” I groan. “We’ve been at this for centuries. I’m ready for a break.”

“Explain.”

“Explain? Explain what? My feelings?” I hurl the comb at the alien. It bounces harmlessly off and floats toward Pluto. “You scoop me up from my planet along with a bunch of junk — you’re Alaskan crab fishermen, and I’m the crab. You’ve got me explaining details of our civilization one by one, using terms you may not even understand. ‘Explain Christmas, explain inflation, explain the appeal of Gwyneth Paltrow.’ It’s impossible!” I pause for a moment to wipe the spittle from my mouth. “I’ve been in your clutches for eons, answering your endless questions, and you’ve never once answered one of mine. So no more.” I crossed my arms defiantly. “Your turn. Explain.”

“Explain? Very well,” the alien rumbled, its voice like a semi truck passing by. “Normally subjects are terrified; they explain until they expire. But I can see you’re a curious man, our species loses hair too as we swell with knowledge.” I tried not to picture one of these ghastly beasts with hair. “My identification is Skim. I’m a researcher and author of travel guides.” He held up a dodecahedron and it blazed with swirls of knowledge. 

“Explain. Saber-toothed puff-dog.” A frightful hound materialized before me, eight feet long, with a pink, puffy coat like a Chow Chow and a toucan-like beak. From the beak extruded four fangs, completing the image of a perverse quadruped. It croaked a deep ribbit. A voice oozed from the dodecahedron. “Saber-toothed puff-dog. Found in the jungles of the Yo-Yo System, these fierce predators of the forest make terrific pets for the energetic inhabitants of Yo-Yo III who like to walk the dog. Around the world, these dogs are sometimes known as ‘sleepers,’ due to their hibernation strategies where they rock the baby dogs to bed.”

“Explain. Galactic core.” The hideous dog vanished, replaced with a complex map of the center of the Milky Way. “The galactic core is 10,000 light years-”

“Explain. Earth comb.” The galaxy dissolved, leaving only the dim red light shining from the dodecahedron. “Not found.” Skim shrugged its tentacles. “I need your knowledge to complete my latest installment. ‘Skim’s Guide to the Milky Way: See the best 2% the galaxy has to offer.’ Earth has quite a few treasures, did you know your moon and sun ratios are practically identical? The eclipse you take for granted is a natural wonder of the galaxy, your people can really get some tourism specie. Once you start advertising it correctly, beings from all over the galaxy will swarm to your tiny corner.”

“Explain. Advertising correctly? Swarm?” I ask. “It sounds like you want to take over Earth. Conquer it.” I began to sweat profusely. “Everyone who tried to conquer Earth has failed, we’re a resilient species, and there’s nothing we hate more than non-humans. That’s why dictators compare minorities with rats.”

“Explain. Rats. Never mind, we’ll come back to that. I don’t want to conquer you,” Skim said, laughing so hard its rows of teeth dance. “I like Earth, but I wouldn’t want to live there. It’s a dump, and there are some bad neighborhoods. Have you ever been to the Colosseum? Those Romans don’t care who gets thrown in there. Your government doesn’t make real contact until 1947.” Skim smiled. “Let my book do the work, and soon you’ll be swarmed with aliens. Earth real estate will be worth a fortune soon, there are many ancient beings looking to retire near a yellow star.”

“Explain. How is this not being conquered?” I ask. “You can’t show up somewhere, declare it beautiful, and decide to move in. You’ll be taking land from us. We’re the native people,” I say. “And if this is hurting my planet, you won’t get any more information from me. I won’t be explaining chocolate ice cream, the sunrise, brown paper packages tied up with strings, or ménage à trois. That last one is great. You’ll have to kill me and dump my body in a space ditch.” 

“Explain. Native?” Skim chucked again. “You aren’t native. Your people moved to Earth, just like you moved from your planet before that, and the one before that. Humans are as plentiful in the galaxy as suns. You came to a planet, declared it empty, killed the local Neanderthals, and now you’re angry someone might do it to you. And if you won’t explain Earth’s ways, I’ll find someone who will.” 

“Explain,” I say. Skim lifts the dodecahedron, and I feel each atom in my body buzzing, churning, longing to separate from its cohorts. My body is alive with vibration, each cell burns as the mitochondria swell and begin to revert to stardust. My tongue falls away, and with my last breath I gasp, “Stop.” My body becomes one again, and I collapse to the floor, heaving in pain. Skim points a long, terrible tentacle at me.

“Explain.”