There's a small washed-up farm at the edge of my small washed-up town. It hasn't been growing much besides a plum tree and maybe some kale for years now. In an effort to get the community to invest in revamping the farm up, its owners put on a small fair there. I don't like to turn community activities down, so I found myself taking a tour of the farm with a few other townsfolk I didn't recognize. Leading the tour was a handsome blond man named Russell. He introduced himself to be a volunteer at the farm, going to school to study biology. The farm is on the outskirts of a forest, so the walking tour turned out to be a short hike. Russell would stop here and there to identify flora for us with their proper names, as if we would retain any of that.
We reached a downward slope, and the loose gravel made me lose my footing a few times. At one point, I slipped so suddenly that I elbowed the man nearest to me in his gut, making him keel over.
"I'm so sorry!" I exclaimed, dropping down next to him.
"I'm good," he wheezed, getting back up.
"What's your name? I'm so sorry."
"Paul-"
"I'm so sorry Paul."
"You're really okay."
I felt doubly embarrassed for overdoing the apology, but it is not often you manage to damage a complete stranger.
"I'm Lou, sorry again." I just couldn't help myself.
He pretended not to hear the last apology and we continued walking with the pack.
"Paul, right?" Russell called over.
"Yes," He responded.
"I saw back at the farm you had brought camping gear. You planning on spending the night with us?"
Paul just nodded, unsmiling. In an effort to soften him up, I said to him,
"I am, too. I think it's just so cute, how everyone in the community is spending time in nature like this."
"Yet somehow they managed to bring no local vendors to the event," he said in a bitter tone.
"Oh. I hadn't even noticed that," I responded. I wanted to add to his thought, but could think of nothing insightful to say, so that ended the conversation.
The walking tour wound up back at the main farmhouse.
"Now, we're standing about twenty feet away because the house happens to be situated on a sinkhole. Farmworkers and volunteers used to occupy this space, but it is deemed unsafe now, as the whole building could collapse," Russell explained, "However, we do not have the money to properly demolish it yet, so hopefully by the end of this weekend we can get a fund properly started."
We nodded our agreement and followed him back to where we started, where a DJ was playing folk music under the plum tree. Families were seated at small outdoor tables, drinking handmade apple cider and chatting with their neighbors.
I mingled with a few people I recognized, but the sun began to set and the families who were not staying for camping began to return to their warm homes. If I squinted in the low light, I could just make out the lights of the nearest home down the road.
-
"I just don't see how it's not plausible." Russell said matter-of-factly.
Russell, Paul, and I, were the last remaining around the campfire. Everyone else had excused themselves to the tents for the night after long conversation and campfire music.
"So we're in agreement then?" Paul asked curtly.
"The question is, how?" I prompted.
"You're going to have to be more specific," Paul said.
"Like, how do they exist, I mean, how do they present themselves... " I began, fumbling for words, "Okay, take technology for example: are they more advanced than us, technologically, or are they simpler than we are? We always assume they're observing us, probing us--"
"-Because there are eyewitness reports about it," Paul interjected, his tone irritated. "Besides, who cares about the simpler alien races in comparison to the more advanced races? Think about it: in our lifetime, we won't traverse space nearly far enough to find them, so we're reliant on allowing them to find us. Only the more advanced aliens would present themselves for us to interact with-- who gives a shit about the alien cows in the next galaxy over when there are man-like alien species sighted on Earth?"
"What do you think, Russell?" I asked.
"You've got a point, Paul, it's way more fun to think about the kind that are probably abducting humans. But as a biologist, I've got to admit I'm curious about the alien cows or alien sea anemones or... whatever, that could exist, too," he said, motioning to me. "Even the simplest of life forms are still life on other planets. And how do you even define 'life' on other planets? They won't have the same atmospheric conditions as we do, so their biological makeup would be entirely different."
"What if it's similar, though?" I asked. "What if life on other planets has the same biological 'bone structure', so to speak? Do you know what I'm trying to say? Like, maybe they breathe differently than us, but they still breathe to live? Or something like that?"
"You all are idiots," Russell's girlfriend called from the tents, "And you're speaking too loud. Russell, come to bed."
She was right - we were three morons trying to sound intelligent around a campfire, making obvious efforts to impress each other with our weak understanding of potential space life.
"Okay, y'all, I'm going to call it a night. Can I trust you two to put the fire out before you sleep?" Russell asked.
"Sir yes sir," I said. Paul nodded solemnly.
Russell groaned like an old man as he rose from his tree stump, and slowly hobbled into the darkness.
A silence fell over the campfire at his departure. I didn't know how to talk with Paul one-on-one, and he didn't seem eager to get to know me, either. Fortunately for me, though, that did not deter me from making conversation. Serious men are a challenge I meet with open arms. I love to see if I can make them crack-- loosen up a little-- either by warming them up or annoying them to their breaking point. It was always a bit of a gamble, depending on how they responded to my personality.
