C.W.: profanity
Dear Reader,
I wrote this for the Dear Aliens contest. Alas, my piece was not chosen, but some really great ones were; I thought you might enjoy seeing mine. Or not. (Mine may have been a bit too earnest? Typical Word Raccoon. LOL.)
Goddamn it, Babies, You’ve Got to be Kind
Dear Aliens,
First of all, I apologize if you feel marginalized by that title. Why don’t we call you “friends in the making,” instead?
Writing this letter to you, not knowing if you will get it before or after my passing is an odd feeling. Maybe what is important in the future will be different than what is important now, but let me offer something from the late, great Kurt Vonnegut: “Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you’ve got a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies-“God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”
Now maybe you don’t yet know that there are curse words in that to emphasize how strongly he feels about us being kind, which means some people will be offended if you repeat those aloud. The man was sent off to war and came back broken but a writer, which is maybe the same thing. If anyone earned the right to strong language, it was him.
You will have to decide if you find it as useful as he did. (He was only given 84 years.)
Not knowing how long your lifespan is, I can only offer words that apply to humans: life is a gift, a fleeting one that will seem as long as the universe and as short as a blink at the same time. You think when you’re older you won’t care about things as strongly, but you will always care about the things that truly matter, and some that are petty, too.
You may always wish your ass were smaller, though tell me why that matters to anyone.
You will always want your loved ones to be safe.
You will always welcome spring and summer and curse the winter. Although maybe you are bringing tech with you that will do away with winter?
Please?
Everything I can offer you will be a disguised cliché , and maybe that’s the freshest advice I can offer: read our clichés, because they tell you what humanity as a whole has decided is important. We just haven’t learned how to give it new clothes.
NB: a cliché is something that has been overused because it’s true, but people are tired of hearing it. You will not be one to us. Maybe we will be to you.
At any rate, welcome, welcome, and we hope you come in peace and that you won’t leave us in pieces. (That’s an example of homophones, where two words sound the same but are spelled differently. And those two words mean very different things here. It’s important to learn how our language works.)
While I, a pacifist, shouldn’t say this, you should know that if you don’t come in peace, you won’t have an easy time of it. Vonnegut didn’t urge us to be kind because it’s our natural impulse, though I wish it were.
As terrified as I am to meet you, I’m equally excited, and I hope we can learn to coexist peacefully.
Enjoy the journey.
I know I have.
And reader, I hope you enjoyed reading this, too.
Always,
Drema
dremadrudge.com 