Silverfish

Of the order Thysanura—clearly, visitors
from another planet. Crescent moons or
straightened fish out of water, they are
neither imperialists nor spies, but tourists—
with eyes "small or absent', happy to eat
their fill, none posing any serious threat.
Thysanurans "run fast but do not jump', are
"cryptically coloured'. I know them as silver
pulp waiting to be pressed by vexed fingers:
open to defeat, yet so often evading it …
I believe their planet is a non-violent
one; any plots hatched in secret
concern the taking of samples home for
scientific study, market research: truth or
trade, not warfare, their aim. They are
all, it would seem, extreme introverts
possessed of an unobtrusive, mute
silverness—it may be, we have not
prized this quality enough. Let a number
of them come forward, and take a group from our
side to Thysanura in a fish-scaled saucer
spun through oceans of time. On their planet,
we'll grow accustomed to dimness, learn what
it is to long for radiance, to wear it
quietly, and to have survived millennia
squared: unarmoured, utterly erasable.