I was sleeping when the alien ship finally opened. It was early morning when the call came, ringing loudly through the shabby motel room. A fellow reporter, filling me in.

Her voice was shaky on the line, understandably so. I asked her to repeat the last sentence.

“Wizards, Matt. A bunch of Wizards just stepped out.”

“Ha ha. What’s going on, seriously.”

“Seriously, I don’t know what else to say. They each have a little staff, one of them has a pointy hat, they’re only, like, three feet tall. They’re actually pretty adorable.”

After the shock of the initial meeting, the “Wizards” laid out their plans for peaceful coexistence. But we humans had other ideas: here began the incessant questions about Tolkien, nerds asking to see a demonstration of magic missile, and government officials clamoring over which spells could be used to fight terrorism.

They left, suddenly. Without ever explaining that their apparent resemblance was nothing more than a cosmic coincidence.