“Can you get that?” Jake mumbled and turned away from me at the sound of the rattling knocks. Not at the door but at the kitchen window. No matter how many times I try to explain this, each new stray ends up at the kitchen window. I still don’t know why that is, but my working theory is that they’re seeking out the entrance closest to the food. Without saying a word, I got up. It’s almost 3am. I can’t put this on Jake and it’s not his fault that this isn’t even alarming anymore. The knocking repeats. I did this to myself.

I stumble into the kitchen and open the small window above the sink. “Not fit!!!” he yells, his rancid breath hitting me in the face through the window screen as he stares back at me with deep voids for eyes. “Yea bud, you’re gonna have to use the front door.” I gestured behind me but his vacant stare tells me nothing I’ve said has registered. His eyes stay locked on me, as though waiting for me to manifest a new door in front of him. Slowly he rises a limb and then another limb and proceeds to push them against the window screen.

“No no no” My exhaustion provided no urgency in my voice to queue any kind of command. And just like that, he’s ripped through the window screen. He is going to try and climb through the window. Last time this happened, the whole frame got ripped out of the wall. I consider that moment one of Jake’s breaking points.

“Show you, NOT fit, NOT suitable entry!” the creature continues to try and thrust himself through the window, in what appears to be some kind of smug teachable moment.

“Yea, it’s not an entry.” I point to the door behind me. “That is the entry.”

He stops mid window-thrust as though he’s finally understanding me for the first time. I hear a cracking sound and can only assume the newly replaced window frame isn’t going to hold up much longer. He stays frozen for a few seconds. One thing I’ve learned about this species is that they’re anything but fast. It remains a mystery to me how they’ve managed to make their way to Earth at all, repeatedly. Although it seems never on purpose, which is telling.

Last summer this happened for the first time. An alien just like this one named Xio came to my kitchen window at some odd hour of the night. He had a much stronger grasp on English and better temperament than the current alien jammed in my kitchen window, slowly processing the concept of doors. Xio was slow, but highly intelligent. Of course I was afraid when I first saw him, hardly able to believe my eyes. I figured I had finally snapped, but thankfully due to Xio’s sloth like nature, I didn’t find him too threatening. He let me know he “glitched” here, and needed shelter to recover his body and teleport system.

Jake wasn’t too thrilled with my unilateral choice to bring in a nomad, especially an intergalactic one. We argued for hours, and he demanded I contact the government directly. I shuddered at the thought, and used E.T. and MAC and Me as reference points for why that was an awful idea. Eventually we came to an agreement: the second we started to feel our lives might be in danger, we’d contact the authorities. In retrospect, Jake likely wishes he’d set some firmer boundaries around property damage. While not dangerous, Xio could be considered highly accident prone. The house seemed to shrink with him in it, his shoulders always hunched forward while trying to go through doorways or sit on his favorite recliner. While Xio had more spatial awareness than most of his kind, he still managed to rip through door frames and pull cabinet doors right off their hinges without meaning to. His body was incredibly dense, making the destruction effortless, and anything with a handle utterly perplexed him.

Xio otherwise kept to himself for 10 full days, and he didn’t share too much information with us about where he came from, where he was going, and how he ended up at our kitchen window instead. Despite his size, he ate very small portions and seemed to find most human meals repulsive. His preference was raw food, and he detested any kind of seasoning. Although I thought this a bit bland, it made it very easy to accommodate him as he couldn’t very well go to the grocery store or diner.

When Xio left, it was unceremonious. His kind are not keen on emotional goodbyes, and he seemed rather indifferent to my hospitality. Nevertheless I sent him off with a crate of fresh vegetables and wished him a safe journey. What I hadn’t realized was that he must have rated our home as some kind of five-star stop on a galactic road trip resource, because others like him haven’t stopped showing up ever since.

“STUCK!!! STUCK!!!” with sheer panic, the Xio-like creature stuck in my window snaps out of his spaced-out state and goes directly into thrashing chaos until he jolts back and falls to the ground, taking my kitchen window screen with him. I walked closer to the window to look out and see if he’s okay when I finally see it… what was behind him this entire time. “Oh. Oh no.”

Jake walked into the room, stood beside me and upon looking out the window he sternly said “Absolutely not.” and retreated back into the bedroom. There in our humble backyard is a ship, something we hadn’t seen before as all the others seemed to teleport via a small device that looked like a clam-shaped flip phone. The ship had taken out our back fence, and it's cliché saucer shape spilled into the neighbor’s yard. Surrounding the ship stood about 20 aliens, most looking too fearful to approach the window or their alien friend on the ground who had been imprisoned by the busted screen around his arms. He continued thrashing about, unable to work his arms out of the screen. “GET!!” the frustrated alien yells, his long restrained limbs aimed at me. Multiple bizarre weapons raise and five of the biggest creatures I’ve ever seen charge for the house. “IN HONOR OF EMPEROR XIO!!” They yelled, and the rest chanted back.

I turned to run as the kitchen wall started crashing in behind me, I made my way down the hall and Jake pulled me into a coat closet. He gently closed the accordion doors Xio could never quite understand, and whispered “It’ll take them hours to figure out how to get in here.”