1

Got to use that anti-gravitational hyper beam to draw people in, only to hide from them everything. Safety lies in obscurity. Safety lies, primarily, in not being the same. It comes for me when I'm indifferent. I try to treat you the same. I play the parts. I say the words. I have the name. I, too, have the blood pumping through my veins-as far as I can tell. As far as I can tell, I can't tell you anything. I don't know about you anything. Everything is all from my perspective. I am a human being, as far as I can tell. I am a living thing, as far as I can see. But how far can I see? It's all just a sensation. Life is an animation of chemicals firing off in your brain. Who's to say you're fireworks aren't just playing games? Feelings are a tricky monster. Deception can often discard the self. The ego lurks in the shadows that consume everything. The fog of war. The fog of greed. The fog of need. The fog bleeds on through into everything. Perhaps I'm just a reptilian that found some comfortable skin. Oh, come on, you can't tell me it's all that alien to feel superficial. Who knows what you really are? A copy of a copy of a copy of a genuine thought. An expression. An intention. They seldom coincide. That's because we're all double agents working for the other side. Interdimensional espionage, or maybe I'm just too proud to say I'm sorry. Or, maybe, perhaps, once again, in this particular case, I am pulling one over on myself. I feel like it's almost natural to apologize here. I feel like it's rehearsed though. A copy of a copy of a copy of a vague notion of what it might possibly mean to be genuine. I play the parts. I speak the words. I, too, am an evil dark menace in this particular instance. I'm glad you rehearsed forgiveness. From one reptilian to another, these human customs make no since to me. From one fraudulent, rogue, scales under the skin, to another, these human costumes we wear frustrate me. Now, of course, I only mean this half halfheartedly. That is if I, indeed, mean any of it, at all, my friend. My friend-alien. Different. Our history a foreign concept to me. But, don't worry, I won't try you before the galaxy for the atrocities of being a co- conspirator on paper only. Stealing identities. Useless identities. The fog of our mutual civility. Certainly, you feel like you're an esoteric organism lost in space too.