The Social Alien

Eddie Kowalski lay on his mattress above the closed Hoagie Heaven on North Main with the TV on for company and a spiral notebook open on his chest, all seven of his blond spikes still upright against the pillow, and at two minutes past eleven on Sunday night he pressed POST. A mile and a half east, alone in a garage on Starfighter Lane, in a white shirt that reached his knees, Zog had the ship’s display up and was reading the humans.

EXTERNAL NETWORK · PUBLIC FEED · ROUTED
OBSERVER NOTES: ON
PROFILE IMAGES RENDERED AS WIREFRAME (LOCAL PRIVACY STANDARD)
23:21 LOCAL

OBSERVER NOTE: The display shows every human face as a green oval. Tonight everyone on Earth looks like me. I find this restful.

OBSERVER NOTE: The humans have built a machine that allows each of them to speak to all of the others at once. In the last nine minutes it has shown me a sandwich, a dog dressed as a smaller dog, and a man falling off a trampoline eleven times, set to music. The man is fine. I checked. The music was the same each time.

OBSERVER NOTE: Beneath each post is a number. It is the agreement tally: the count of humans who have touched a small heart to say that they agree. On Zogar, agreement is recorded in triplicate and takes nine working days to process. Here it takes one finger, and nobody reads what they are agreeing to first. I consider this very brave.

@certified_fit_haver
Rate my fit.
1.2K

OBSERVER NOTE: What is a “fit”? Is this a medical emergency? The human is standing in front of a mirror in a large coat and appears unharmed. I have checked my own fit. The shirt reaches my knees. I believe that is a good fit.

@nocapjustfacts_99
no cap this is the best gas station coffee in the state
41

OBSERVER NOTE: What cap? I am wearing a cap. It is on backward, which I am told is correct. Is this about me? I have looked at the photograph for some time and I do not see a cap. I see a cup. I believe the human has confused the two.

@bassline.devotee
this slaps
3.3K

OBSERVER NOTE: The post is about a song. I have listened to the song twice. It did not slap. Songs do not have hands. I watched the video a third time to look for hands, and there was a man in a hat pointing at the sky, but he did not slap anyone either.

@sloane_defense_squad
Sloane did NOT deserve that
18K

OBSERVER NOTE: She did. I have watched the episode forty times. She did.

@literally.deceased.4real
im literally dead
902

OBSERVER NOTE: The human is still typing. I have reported this to no one.

OBSERVER NOTE: All week, whenever I spoke, Eddie wrote in a small book. He does not share it. I assume it is about wrestling.

@countertop_chaos_agent
[video: a cat walks to the edge of a kitchen counter, looks at the camera, and keeps walking]
he knew what he was doing
400K

OBSERVER NOTE: Four hundred thousand humans watched it fall. None of them helped.

@touchgrass_enforcement
some of yall need to touch grass
7.7K

OBSERVER NOTE: I went behind the garage and touched the grass, as instructed. It was cold and slightly wet. Nothing further occurred. I have returned to the display and I am awaiting the second instruction.

23:23 LOCAL

@TotallyNotAnAlien
Why do humans pay money for water? It literally falls from the sky. Your entire species is being scammed by clouds.
300

OBSERVER NOTE: I said this. I said it at the EZ-STOP, beside the water machine, to Carlos, who was restocking a shelf and did not respond. Another being has reached the same conclusion independently. Its face is a green oval, like everyone’s. I am not alone on this planet about water. I have registered an agreement with three fingers. I do not know how many fingers are required.

OBSERVER NOTE: The tally is now 301. I did not do that one. It is now 318. Somewhere in the dark, three hundred and eighteen humans are also not alone about water. I have never agreed with so many beings at the same time. Where I am from, it would require a permit.

@snackwave.og
my grandmas meatloaf is bussin
2.1K

OBSERVER NOTE: This word does not exist in any of the forty thousand languages Z.A.R.A. holds. I have asked her twice. The second time she did not answer, which is also an answer. I believe humans are inventing new words specifically to confuse extraterrestrial observers. It is working.