AE0
Wes: Do you think he was really an alien?
The woman smiles to herself. She is sitting across from Wes on a stool at the bar of my kitchen and he stands leaning against the dishwasher.
Blogger: He says that ‘alien’ should be an epithet. It supposes superiority, like Earth is where real life comes from and everything else is foreign and weird. Not legitimate or something. I think that it’s best to say that I believe him when he said he is not a simple car or plane ride away.
The woman stops and her eyes roll up, like she is thinking about what she just said more carefully.
Blogger: It’s true I took some convincing, but I do believe him.
Wes: So, you think he’s over eight feet tall with horns?
Blogger: Not quite nine feet, the conversion is not precise, but that’s about it.
Wes: What if this is all a scam? What if it’s an elaborate practical joke that you fell for?
Blogger: You enjoy writing don’t you? That’s why you’re talking to me now, because my story is interesting and you want to be the one to tell it. Well, what if I told you that tomorrow, no one would ever take you seriously? No matter how hard you try to say something that really reaches someone, no one will get it, and if they do, they won’t care. But I imagine that by now, writing is second nature for you, maybe you journal. So even if no one acknowledges what you do, you’re likely to keep doing it. It’s a part of you. This experience did happen to me, it continues to this day. It’s my reality.
Wes nods. I can tell he thinks she’s crazy, even if he is willing to believe in intelligent life on other planets, this story sounds so implausible and unnecessarily complicated to him. If it were up to him, we would not have featured this story at all, he could have come up with something better. But I thought it felt like the truth, even if it was just someone else’s fiction, I thought it was worthy of repeating. She believes that a god-like alien loves her and she can hear his voice in her head. Maybe she is crazy, but no doctor has ever told her that before. And what have we always said about underestimating other people’s stories? Well nothing, but we will go on the record now and say, don’t underestimate other people’s stories. So Wes powers through.
Wes: I won’t make you do parlor tricks to prove your claims…
Blogger: I wouldn’t do them if you asked.
Wes: Fair enough. Just to wrap all this up, can you state plainly for the record how this man proved that he is always with you?
Blogger: In the way that we know that we’re loved. The way that we know someone is watching us. The way that we know we are not alone.
She said it smiling, but something about it sent a shiver down my back. It wasn’t eerie, just a very powerful proclamation of love and I imagine that if I ever love someone so intensely, then maybe I could enjoy the same faith in the face of incredulity. I could have faith like she does despite every doubt, every detractor.
Blogger: The greatest enemy of true love is mistrust. The minute I decided to trust, and he did the same, we realized that we were one and would always be.
Wes thanked the woman and waved her out the front door.
Wes: You believe her?
Me: I think I have to.
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