We Come in Interest

Space aliens arrive on earth and fail to recognize humans as life forms. They seem to regard us as insects or even less than that, troubling smells. They vaporize humans left and right. But the odd thing is that they enjoy our art tremendously. They spend a lot of time in our museums and movie theaters. No one is able to understand why such an advanced race cannot equate the art with its creator. To attempt to communicate with them is to court certain extinction. Over time, humanity realizes its only chance for survival, for co-existence, is to completely ignore their presence. Over time, a weird form of homeostasis is achieved and the human race no longer faces extinction. Occasionally, a particularly proud man or woman or child--or a nasty drunk--will tap one of the creatures on what they believe to be its shoulder and the process of vaporization will begin all over again. If it's a child, the mother might scream and attack the alien and then she might be vaporized too, and then her husband or boyfriend or girlfriend might run forth in rage and be vaporized. But usually the drama ends there. And then people go about their business. And the aliens return to their conspicuous consumption of culture and their preferred mode of invisibility-under-pain-of-death.