The Customs Lounge

At the Customs Lounge, inspectors swap boastful stories about fooling smugglers, catching counterfeit teeth, and handling the baffling creatures known as Earth people. To the officials, earthers are uncivilized, troublesome, and barely worthy of passage through Immigration—so the announcement that they will soon be routed through Livestock is greeted with delight by nearly everyone except the livestock inspector.

But beneath the lounge’s routine prejudice and comic bureaucracy, appearances are not as reliable as the inspectors believe. Two young officials slip away from the group, revealing that their odd anatomy and practiced manner may be part of a carefully maintained disguise. With its playful alien slang, upside-down assumptions, and brisk science-fiction humor, this short tale invites listeners to question who is really being inspected—and who is quietly studying whom.