NFA Finance

If Aliens Arrived, I’d Want to Know Their Story

Today’s prompt is a little odd: If aliens arrived tomorrow, what’s the first thing you’d ask them?

Honestly, I’ve never spent much time thinking about that. I don’t have some big question saved up for the day a spaceship lands. But if it happened, and we could actually have a conversation, I think I’d start pretty much the same way I would with anybody I’d just met.

Where are you from? How’d you get here? What’s your deal?

Tell me your story.

It sounds almost too simple for a question about aliens, but that’s my answer. I’d be meeting somebody from somewhere I’d never been, with a life I knew nothing about. There would be plenty to talk about.

I’d want to know what home was like. What made them leave? Were they just looking around? Did they come here for a reason? How did they even find this place?

I’m sure one answer would lead to another question. That’s usually how a good conversation works. You don’t need to show up with a whole interview planned. You ask something, listen, and see where it goes.

That’s the part of this prompt I can relate to: meeting somebody new and finding out how they ended up standing in front of you.

Think about how often that happens in everyday life. You meet someone in a coffee shop, at work, or while you’re out somewhere. You start talking. Maybe they grew up a thousand miles away. Maybe they moved here for a job, to be near family, or because they decided it was time to make a change.

You can’t know any of that just by looking at them. You have to ask.

I’ve met a lot of people through the car business and just being out in the world. A conversation might start with a car, but pretty soon you’re hearing about where someone grew up, what they do, and what they’ve been through. That’s what makes meeting people interesting to me. There’s always more going on than you see at first.

Obviously, meeting an alien would be a little different. I’d have a few more questions about the transportation. Coming from another planet is a hell of a trip.

But once we got past that, I’d still want to hear their story. What’s life like where they’re from? What do they spend their days doing? And after traveling all that way, what do they think of us?

I don’t know how that conversation would go. This is a pretty strange thing to picture while sitting here answering a daily blog prompt.

But my first question is easy.

“Where you from? What’s your story?”

Then I’d let them talk.

— Nicholas Francis