Journal

First Contact, First Question

If aliens arrived tomorrow, everyone I know has the same answer ready: take me with you.

Fair. Valid. Been there.

But if a ship set down on the beach tomorrow morning, and something stepped out that did not look like anything my grandmother warned me about, here is what I think I would actually ask:

What do you call home?

Not "where are you from," because from implies a map, and their map is not our map. Home is different. Home is the place that answers when you say the word. Every human culture on this rock has a word for it, and every single one of them is loaded. Home is where the food knows your name. Home is the horizon you measure everything else against. Home is the thing you defend, the thing you leave, the thing you spend your whole life trying to get back to or build again somewhere new.

If beings crossed the dark between stars, the one thing they and we already share is that somebody, somewhere, is waiting to hear that they made it back okay.

That is the question I would ask. Not for their answer. For the moment of recognition, when two completely different kinds of alive realize we have been carrying the same word around the whole time.

Which raises the better question, and the one I am actually asking you: if they arrived tomorrow, what would you ask first? Not the clever answer. Not the group chat answer. The true one.

Drop it in the comments. I have a feeling the answers on this one are going to tell me more about us than any ship ever could.