“♩♪♫.” He makes a gesture. He reaches forward with two of his hands and grabs… nothing. And then he pulls the nothing toward him.

“What?”

He taps the wall and points to the clock, then repeats the gesture. Does he want the clock to be closer to the wall?

I push the clock closer. This seems to excite him. He makes the gesture more rapidly. I move it further forward. The clock is almost touching the wall now. He does the gesture one more time, but this time a little slower.

At this point, I have no idea what he wants. So I just push the clock up against the wall. It’s touching now. He raises his hands and kind of shakes them. Alien jazz hands. Is that a good thing?

Okay, I hope he understands I’ll be back in two hours. I turn to leave but immediately hear tap-tap-tap.

“Whaaat?” I say.

“♪♪♫♪,” he says, pointing to the clock. It drifted a little bit away from the wall. He doesn’t like that.

“Um, okay,” I say. I pull a loop of tape off the wall, unloop it, and rip it in half. I use the two halves to tape the left and right sides of the clock to the clear wall.

Rocky gives me the jazz hands signal again. I think it means “yes” or “I approve of this.” Like nodding.

I turn to leave again, but tap-tap-tap!

I spin around once more. “Dude, I just want a darn nap!”

He holds up a finger. Using my own sign language against me. Now I have to wait! I guess that’s fair. I hold up my finger to acknowledge it.

He opens a circular door leading into his ship. It’s the right size for an Eridian—I would have a hard time squeezing through if that ever became a plan. He disappears inside, leaving the door open. I’d love to know what’s beyond the door, but I can’t see anything. It’s pitch-black in there.

Hmm. Interesting. It is completely dark in his ship. That door probably leads to an airlock. But even an airlock would have some lights in it, wouldn’t it?

Rocky didn’t have any problem getting around. But I know he can see—he responds to my gestures. This lends strength to my earlier theory about Eridian vision: I think they see a different part of the spectrum than humans do. Maybe they see entirely in infrared or entirely in ultraviolet. That airlock might be perfectly lit up as far as Rocky’s concerned and I can’t see a thing. Conversely, my lights are completely useless to him.