It was midnight on January first, and the first fireworks over London cast their colored flares on the spaceship that appeared out of space. It looked like a matte-black, upside-down pineapple, and its descent stopped meters above Waterloo Bridge. People flocked to it. Before the sun rose on England in the new year, tens of thousands thronged on the bridge, in the streets, and in boats on the Thames. They cheered the visitors as they would a messiah, a beloved head of state, or one of the Beatles. When the sun peeked over the horizon, a bright, green spotlight singled out one person below the ship and an alien descended from the ship: an oblong head atop a thin lampshade with maybe some feet at the bottom.

"We are come here to honor celebration," the creature said in halting English.

"You, you're here to celebrate the new year?" asked the person in the spotlight, of no general importance whatsoever.

"New yahr? Do you no celebrate alignment of the seventeen Holy Galaxies?"

"Uh, no?" The person looked completely uncomfortable.

"Shit," said the alien. "Got to find good party." It returned to the ship. The ship returned to space, never to return.