It Wasn't

An alien. Not the bulb-headed Martian or the beast that walks on its eyeballs, not an amalgamation of recognizable anatomy using the human blueprint, but something truly foreign.

Something that can't be described with words, not from any language nor from any string of roots and affixes. Something that the eyes can't comprehend, that the brain can't make sense of.

I cannot say its legs were attached elsewhere or that its arms erupted from its mouth when it required them. I cannot say its jaw was a headline or that its fingers were teeth. It did not possess these things.

Something that can't be described with words, but words are just sounds given meaning. What was an ugly word then? Not in the sense of being physically repulsive, but of being unnatural, indescribable.

Misget. Non't. What connotation did it deserve? It was not bad, not necessarily, but it was not good either. Could good and bad even apply to it? Did it have a brain to register these things? Did it think? All things think.

But it was not a thing. I couldn't even be sure if it took up space, if it was comprised of matter, of atoms, of life. Did it live? Did it die? Did its span end in life rather than death? Was death where it began?

But just because it was not like me did not mean it was the opposite of me. Life and death were human concepts, human words. What did it process when it heard these human words? It did not speak, not by voice nor extremity nor mind. It did not possess these things, not like I did. Perhaps I could not hear its voice, like only dogs can hear dog whistles, like only certain animals can hear certain frequencies.

But it did not possess these things, these human concepts, these human words. It did not move, or perhaps it did. It didn't move like I did. It did nothing like I did, like anyone did, like anything did. It was simply there, or perhaps it was not. It did not possess these things.

It was not white, nor was it brown. It was not green or pink or red, it was none of these things, but it was not black either. It held no color yet lacked absence. It merely appeared to me, just as it was. Itself. But perhaps it was not it — perhaps it did not have a self.

Perhaps it was a plant. Perhaps it was a tree, or a rock, or a gem. But it did not have roots. It did not glimmer as a diamond would. It reflected nothing at all.

Perhaps it was a thought or a feeling. An emotion made manifest. But I felt nothing, only fear of the unknown.

Perhaps that's what it was. An illusion of the mind. But the mind creates things with outlines, with things that can be imagined. It could not. I wanted to, but it did not appear there, not as it was. I could not place things because there were no things to place. It was not a thing. But 'it' implies it was. It contradicted itself, or did I contradict it? Was my mind so feeble? Did I make excuses and take shortcuts to understand it? This thing that was not a thing?

It was nothing, yet it was. Nothing implies absence, yet it was here, or perhaps it was not. Perhaps I was crazy. Perhaps I lacked sense. I did not understand it, or perhaps I did. I did not possess these things.