“AAARGH!” Fyodor screamed, in his mind. He tossed my head about frantically as if he wanted to shake out the disturbing image of the spaceship approaching from the dark sky. “Platon’s right… I just had a grim accident… those strange phantoms in my mind… just a by-product of my head injury… it could be worse… I could still be seeing that THING all around me…”

I disconnected from his mind for a moment. Maybe the earthling was right. The spaceship might be a vision that was induced by an injury to my body, but something told me that it was real. I knew that some creatures chose to travel in those things. They built weird metal boxes, spaceships, to drag their poor bodies around the place. Was it possible that other aliens had landed on Earth at the same time as myself?

“I’ve got schizophrenia from the injury… a dual personality…” my host thought. “I see strange things… dogs talking… I act unpredictably… but, hang on!.. shouldn’t I… have some evidence of the surgery?.. I should have some marks on my body from the accident…”

Frantically, Fyodor started to poke my body again. “Mirror!.. I need a mirror!” he almost cried.

He encouraged me to stand, but when he leaned out of the sub-compartment, he immediately pulled back.

There was something outside in the bigger cave. Something weird.

“Cigarette pack ‘Marlboro’. Platon 100%! Paper…”

“‘Red Bull’ can. Señor Martinez 75%, and Marissa 25%. Plastic…”

“‘Men’s Vogue’ magazine. Platon 80%, and Fernando 20%. Paper…”

“Ballet entrance tickets. Platon 100%! Paper…”

I carefully moved the swinging wall of the sub-compartment and peered out. There was a yellow barrel-like headless earthling, half our height, digging into a big black sack. He had long cable-like hands sorting things out from the big sack and putting them into four smaller sacks.

“Flower wrapping paper. Pepe 100%! Paper…”

“Flower wrapping paper. Pepe 100%! Paper…”

“Flowerpot. Pepe 100%! Other…”

The creature stopped for a moment then smashed the flowerpot to smithereens and neatly swept the pieces into the bag.

“Shredded documents. Marissa 100%! Paper…”

“Invoices, bills. Señor Martinez 100%! Paper…”

Despite Fyodor’s qualms, I hesitantly stepped out of the sub-compartment. The creature didn’t seem to notice me.

“Shredded documents. Marissa 100%! Paper…”

“Flower wrapping paper. Pepe 100%! Paper…”

I crept toward the earthling, from behind.

“Shredded press cutting. Señor Martinez 50%, Platon 50%. Paper…” the earthling said, then flinched and abruptly turned on the spot.

Next to the creature’s single protruding eye, a red light came on. The yellow creature moved his eye up and down, studying me for a moment. I squirmed beneath his stare.

“Recognition failure!” he concluded, and then burst into shrieks. “BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!”

Did you know?..
        
— It seems inconceivable, but humans appear to be obsessed with digging and cutting the body of their planet to excavate dead things, which have an incredibly long but useless operating life and require regrinding.

— On average, each earthling produces 2 kiloseeds (2 kg Earth’s measure) of solid waste each day. This adds up to almost 1000 kiloseeds of trash per person, per year.

— “Paper”, the material produced from the Earth’s appendices that are called “trees”, is the most common item found in their trash.