Posthuman Blues

Two odd, foreign-looking men visited me today.*

"Well, by now you've got it figured out," said the first one, helping himself to a seat.

"Got what figured out?"

The two men exchanged a knowing glance. "Surely you realize," said the second man, still standing, "that there's, well, something different about you."

"You feel out-of-place, like you don't really belong here," offered the seated man helpfully.

"Well, I think everyone experiences something of the sort--"

"Lay off the existential rhetoric, Tonnies," the seated man said. "Face it. You don't relate. You read weird books. You don't like Bush or Kerry. It's time to face the facts."

"I really have no idea what you're talking about," I said, flustered.

"Oh, but you do." The standing man smiled as I fidgeted. "Tell me, Mr. Tonnies: Does the term 'UFO' mean anything to you?"

"Well, uh, sure. I mean--"

The seated man shot a quick confirming glance at his counterpart. "Thought so," he said.

"Thought what, exactly?" I said, increasingly perturbed. "Just say whatever you're here to say and get the hell out of here."

"Mr. Tonnies, you are an alien from outer space." The seated man let the last two words hover in the air as he studied my face, waiting for a reaction.

"It all fits," said the other man. "The preoccupation with cosmology. The weird books. Your anomalously high capacity for caffeine. That rambling book about Mars you wrote."

"That weird blog of yours," suggested the seated man. "Every minute detail of your life leads inexorably to the same conclusion. You can deny it if you wish. But in the end you will find your efforts are futile."

TO BE CONTINUED...?

*This is, of course, entirely made up.