Like an alien visitor it overtook the dry, cracked desert. It created alien air that sparkled with a crisp, soothing dampness that felt good on Ryan’s throat. The fog was so dense the mountains in the distance could hardly be seen. And Ryan’s glasses were beginning to, well… fog up.

Sodium lights ballooned into the air, their fluorescent-orange auras welcomed by the fog to travel as far as they could stretch themselves. It was the only time Ryan ever thought the lamps were pretty.

Ryan walked alone, his hands stuffed in his pockets, wondering how he had come to this planet. He thought back to the day he turned sixteen. How his parents had sat him down with serious, nervous faces. He could sense they were finally ready to admit to him that they were not his biological parents. He had always wondered why he didn’t seem to look like anyone in his family. What he was not ready for, nor could he have predicted, was the tour through the basement to find the remnants of the craft Ryan had traveled in as an infant. His parents told him they’d found it on a hiking trip in the mountains. Why they didn’t tell anyone, they couldn’t say. It was part instinctive, to protect him and themselves, and part serendipity, they figured.

His parents were dead now. Ryan thought about that fact as he walked, admitting to himself the guilt he felt about moving away and not keeping better in touch. He was exactly thirty now, wondering how much longer he had to live. By all accounts he was human, but who could say? If he were built differently on the micro level, perhaps he could live five hundred years – or more? Then again, his rapidly deteriorating eyesight and asthma might be indicators of a much shorter life span. For all Ryan knew, he could be gone in ten years – maybe sooner? The large chasm of the uncertain neither motivated nor discouraged Ryan. He would battle with these questions for as long as he stuck around. That was okay by him. He was okay to wonder. After all, he thought, regular people go about their business, uncertain of their own destinies. Somehow they deal.

Ryan arrived at McDonald’s. The structure lit up the fog with its shiny yellows and reds. Ryan dug into his pocket for some change. He had only come here because it was the closest place that served coffee. And Ryan had a long night ahead of him. He reasoned that, if he could do it, it would still probably take quite a long time to get an old spaceship up and running again.