The sweat rolling down my seatmate, Nick's temple looked delectable. Alas, there wasn't much I could do except shift closer on the pretext of asking him a query; I breathed in the aroma he was giving off so strongly.

It would have to do, for now.

Mr. Bkdom's paunch peeked inside the classroom before he did. He scanned the room, nodded to himself, and scribbled something in his notepad. Then schooling his put-upon expression into something more pleasant, he entered the class.

After the customary greetings were exchanged, he took a marker and wrote on the board:

'Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.'

"Can anyone tell me who said this?" He threw the question at the class.

Nate's hand was the first to shoot up.

"Yes, Nate."

"Arthur C. Clark, professor," Nate replied enthusiastically. He sat back down and glanced at me. 'I took the easy one; you deal with the rest.' His knowing grin seemed to say.

"So, what do you all think of it? Any opinions?" Mr. Bkdom waited for a few human heartbeats. Then called my name, "Gordon," without glancing at me. It wasn't something unexpected; to be honest, Mr. Bkdom hated me and took every opportunity he got as a challenge to embarrass me in front of the class. However, what he hated more was the fact the internet existed and some of his students, especially the likes of me, knew more than him on any given day.

I stood up and offered him my most winning smile, which he returned with an equally fake one before asking, "Do you think we are alone in the universe, Gordon?"

There we go again.

After realizing that he could not find fault with me where the answers were black and white, Mr. Bkdom had taken to asking me more debatable questions. His mission remained the same: to put me down.

"What do you mean by alone, Professor? Do the other terrestrial life forms count?"

My question seemed to irritate Mr. Bkdom for some reason. His brows crawled closer; he twirled his marker between his fingers, "I didn't expect such a question from you. Nevermind, will dumb it down for you. Do you think extraterrestrial life exists, or do you believe otherwise?"

I smirked internally; my face remained impassive. I pretended to give it some thought like I always did.

As if I needed to think.

As if we needed to think.

I took a deep breath and rolled up my sleeve. I exposed my skin to the Earth's atmosphere; Madrak got super sultry during the summer; even this seemingly inconspicuous act rejuvenated me.

I glanced out the window as if decoding the secrets of the universe, and I zeroed in on an ordinary-looking leaf, hidden among a hundred others just like it, blending in as if it belonged there: seamlessly.

It didn't belong. At least, not there.

I turned my 'pretend' visionary sensors towards the half-wits that I walked among every day and couldn't believe that some of them actually dared to think that they were alone in the universe.

I wasn't here to burst their bubble. It wasn't on my to-do list to make our existence known. So I did what I was put on this planet to do: blend in seamlessly.

"Gordon, we are waiting." Mr. Bkdom's taunting tone signaled to me that I had taken an acceptable amount of time to think it over.

"Professor, I believe that we are alone." I lied and followed it up with the thought of human existence as it stood right at this moment in time, "If we weren't, I am sure we would know. It's not like the extraterrestrials would arrive on our planet, go unnoticed for decades, all the while permeating into every branch of the indigenous life form so untraceable that humans...as in we, miss it entirely till its too late, am I right?"

Whatever answer the balding human had prepared died before it made out. He left a stuttering breath and loosened his necktie. "That's...that's terrifying, Gordon. How in the world..."

"Professor, what do you think?" I urged. I genuinely wanted to know which possibility he believed in; however, it seemed like something had distressed him. It was probably my answer.

"I...I... " He gulped and clutched his chest.

"Professor, you don't look so good. Do you want me to call Ms. Gretat?" The one who had enquired was Jim. His to-do list was a little different from mine. He was playing the role of a compassionate idiot.

Ms. Gretat was one of us too; she was the school nurse: the busiest of us all. Her to-do list had more widespread implications than all of us Surveyors in Madrak put together. She was a Gatherer, the best one there was. When she gathered, no one could tell the difference.

Jim took hesitant steps towards the human, who thrived on being proven right, and the one who, at this very second, was having a heart attack. Jim put his fingers over the latter's forearm, successfully transferring our tag/rescue cells into him. "I really think I should take you to Ms. Gretat." he insisted, escorting Mr. Bkdom to the gatherer.

I loved summer. It made our jobs so much easier. The more they sweat, the more sustenance we get. I envied this planet's oceans too. They were magnificent. One dip in them could extend our lives by decades. Most importantly, it had them in abundance. It would last us at least a couple of centuries, by which time our race would have found another world, another place where we could start over.

We came into existence millions of years before the planet started forming. We will continue to exist millions of years after its end.

The next day, Mr. Bkdom came to class and harassed the students just like he was supposed to. At lunch, he sat with his friends cum colleagues and ate the sandwiches he had picked up from the deli: More for less next to his home; he talked about students' rotten attitudes and the sorry state of the college library and then went back home.

Mr. Bkdom did everything that he was supposed to. Nothing more. Nothing less. It was a different matter, however, that he was a changed man. Quite literally. What the humans failed to notice was that Mr. Bkdom was merely following a to-do list just as I was...just as Jim was.

Now, all he cared about and craved for, just like the rest of us extraterrestrials, was sodium chloride, aka salt.

{Word count: 1114}