The Alien looked at me with his Big Eye.

I looked back with my little eye.

He was big, huge, enormous, like an alien giant, but bigger.

I was small and merely human.

He had huge hands. I knew he could squash me.

I wanted somehow to get through to him, to let him know I was not a threat, that I was intelligent, worth saving. My whole species was not just mud to be scraped off the foot, ignored, overlooked, brushed aside.

I had read about this sort of encounter in science fiction books years ago when I was reading more. The people who wrote the books knew the possibilities.

Either the aliens were so beyond us that they brushed us aside. Or they saw us as dangerous, obstacles to be subdued and removed. Or they saw how wonderful humans can be at their best, and decided to support us, educate us, admit us into their confederation.

Or none of the above.

Even if they were unaware, and stepped us unknowingly into oblivion, there should be some reaction.

My job, I decided, was to attract their attention and let them know us at our best.

I waved my arms.

“Hey!” I shouted. “We’re nice people. We mean you no harm. We want to be friends.”

The Big Eye swung in my direction, paused.

Then the alien lumbered, if that’s the right word, got into his interstellar ship I hadn’t noticed, and left the planet.

I looked up at the empty sky and said, “Well, that was unusual.”

But then I thought about it, and said to no one in particular, “Maybe it was just about time.”

I went back into the house and tried to sleep.