I was looking out scanner window three, oddly enough contemplating the difference between myself and aliens and congratulating myself on the advantages, when by the sheerest coincidence the first alien I had ever seen in the flesh came shambling across my concourse to the front door of my estate.

What could such a creature want with me?

I answered the chime with both fear and indignation filling my chest. I cracked the door, but naturally left the shielding in place.

There it stood before me, looking up, little more than a foot away. I'd seen plenty on the holo -- they were always in the news for one reason or another -- but let me tell you that confronting one in person on your front step is an entirely different matter.

"Sir?" it began, nodding and bobbing its strange head toward me in a most offensive manner. Its clothes were little more than an assemblage of rags wrapped about its squashed form, so filthy their once-colors now blended to an uneven gray. Even its face -- too broad with diminutive eyes blinking unnaturally in the sunlight -- looked to be lined with some kind of oily dirt. It seemed as if I could smell the stench of the thing right through the shielding, though of course it was my imagination.

"What do you want?" I demanded, allowing my voice to descend deeply as I spoke.

The incessant bobbing and nodding grew more intense. Apparently the creature apprehended my intense animosity and discomfort yet was incapable of responding in an appropriate fashion.

"I'm looking for work," it croaked in its wretched voice. "I saw the sign out front...and I thought...you might have some work for me."

"Go away! Get out of here!" I said sharply, shifting from the fifth register to the seventh without a beat of doubt. Not that its limited intelligence could ever comprehend such vocal subtlety. "No humans need apply!"

BIO: Bruce Boston is the author of forty books and chapbooks, including the novel Stained Glass Rain. His work has appeared most visibly in Asimov's SF, Amazing Stories, Realms of Fantasy, Strange Horizons, the Pushcart Prize Anthology, Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, and the Nebula Awards Showcase. His collection Pitchblende (Dark Regions) won the 2004 Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association. He lives in Ocala, Florida, City of Trees, with his wife, writer-artist Marge Simon. For more information, please visit: http://hometown.aol.com/bruboston.