Is your home planet stressing you out? Are water supplies dwindling? Are trans aliens being denied healthcare? For two aliens in the distant galaxy of New York, the times were getting to them. They needed a very remote, yet very luxurious, getaway.
Alien #1 began zooming in on a map of Earth. All of the major continents seemed just, like, too busy. Too many towns, too many airports, too many humans.
She kept zooming in until she found the smallest island (with a luxury hotel destination) that she could.
‘Look!’ she said to Alien #2, ‘Pantelleria! It’s volcanic, with geothermal heated waters. It’s like a hot version of Iceland. Plus there’s the Sikelia Luxury Retreat hotel to stay in, which has luxury right in the name!’
Alien #2 loved Iceland, which was a great destination for skin-care obsessed aliens, but didn’t love being referred to as Alien #2.
‘Oooh,’ said Alien #2, googling the destination on the screen built into her hand, ‘Pantelleria has more pandas than people!’
The aliens hopped into their intergalactic spacecraft (Delta 767, economy class) and set their dial for an adventure. Three flights later, they found themselves at the one rental desk of a tiny airport, eager to collect their Panda.
They were greatly disappointed to discover that a Panda was a kind of car. But the moment they took to the winding roads through cliffs and over the sea in their Panda, they knew they’d made the right decision. This would be a vacation truly fit for aliens.
The landscape was green and black, lava stones and cacti. The ocean was a vivid blue, smashing against the rocks. The island had a population of 7,000 humans (along with turtles, stray cats, and many birds), and took only an hour and a half to drive entirely around. It was one of the strangest places they’d seen (and they’d been to both Mars and Union Square subway station).
Other than the main road encircling the island, swooping around cliff faces, most other roads resembled paved ancient stone horse paths. Luckily, Alien #2 was both an excellent driver and a lover of thrills.
Alien #1 cranked the radio, which captured stations broadcast from both Tunisia and Sicily, and they bopped along to songs neither of them understood. Soon, Sikelia rose before them, a gleaming white oasis amidst the red and black earth of the island.
Its roofs, like those of most other buildings on the island, were sloping and domed like cumulus clouds. The aliens had learned the word for this type of building was dammusi, an architectural structure unique to the island, one invented to collect rain water and use the thick lava stone to protect from the elements. They loved this so much they decided they would name their next pet Dammusi.
They parked in front of the hotel and walked through the arched gold doorway. There they were met by Guido, a gentle earthling dressed in flowing white linens. He showed them around the property, pointing out the white stone pool, which had no corners, and the rooftop terrace where sunset drinks would later be enjoyed.
There were bowls of fresh lemons (or actually, cedri: giant bumpy alien lemons) and each dammusi had its own private patio for enjoying the view of the ocean (or drying one’s swimwear). When Guido slid open the door to what would be their room, they gasped.
In contrast to the island’s wild jagged edges, the room was a soft and sloping sanctuary. The walls were painted a soothing gray, the floor was made of space-black stone, and the ceilings were so high they would need their anti-gravity devices to reach them.
The colors of the room provoked the sensation of elegant suede, and everything smelled amazing. There was a welcome fruit plate laid out for them on a small side table. The aliens wondered if this was a normal human custom, and if they could always have a welcome fruit plate when they visited Earth.
Guido pushed a panel in the wall, and it swung upon to reveal a recessed bar, stocked with amaretti cookies, candied almonds, taralli crackers, and a fridge with every conceivable flavor of Italian soda in beautiful glass bottles.
Guido pushed a second panel and revealed a massive closet, large enough to fit the wardrobes of both Alien #1 and Alien #2 (who had never understood the concept of traveling light, and had packed six pairs of shoes between them).
Alien #2 considered all of the lost opportunities she’d had on her previous visits to earth – maybe there would have been more secret compartments, if only she’d pushed on various walls a little bit harder. The Louvre would have been so much more fun if she had found the Italian sodas behind the Mona Lisa.
They were eager for Guido to leave, handsome as he was, so that they could perform their next traditional Alien ritual in private. As soon as he was gone, they stood in the living room (did they mention that there was a separate living room?), held each other’s hand, and looked into each other’s eyes.
‘Are you ready?’ Alien #2 asked. Alien #1 felt her heart beat harder.
They took off at a run (yes, there was enough space to run), they leapt into the air, and they flopped face down onto the bed.
‘Oh my god’ said Alien #1, ‘it’s a 10/10.’
‘No,’ said Alien #2. ‘It’s a 15/10.’
Prior to their arrival, Alien #1 had been emailed a bedding menu to choose from (a combination of her two favorite interests: bedding and menus.) They’d selected linen fibers and memory foam pillows.
They had learned about the human concept of sleeping after reading a Mr & Mrs Smith review of the Nest Hotel in Tulum written by two brilliant (and gorgeous) princesses, and had become obsessed with Earth Bedding.
Since then, they had tested as much of it as they could, and this one was superior to them all. The mattress was clouds, the pillows were clouds, the ceiling was clouds. They were in heaven (which is also a nice place to visit).
Behind another secret panel, the room had a bathroom. The shower was in a cove made from black stone, and while there were lights, it looked best when lit only by the small glass brick of skylight. The bath products were magnolia scented, from Earth fragrance designer Frederic Malle, and the showerhead was less like a shower and more like a waterfall ledge. There was enough space in the shower for two, and now we should move on to the next part of this review…
Dinner was served in a separate dammusi, with an interior just as vast and high-ceilinged as their room, yet just as cozy, gray and soothing. The select few guests of the hotel were already seated. The hotel staff, who moved about with quiet smiles, were all dressed in white and tan loose linens. This gave the place the feeling of a cult, but like, a cozy cult.
‘I have also only just arrived,’ Giulia, the hotel’s owner, said, as she swept over in a bustle of charisma and warmth to greet them. She pointed them to the perfectly set table in a cozy corner banquette, then apologized for the winds that evening. The aliens had been unaware humans could control weather and were intrigued.
‘Have you tried my wines?’ Giulia asked, and Alien #1 rolled that sentence around in her mouth, dreaming of being able to say the same thing herself one day.
The island’s mineral-rich soil produces sweet Zibibbo grapes (Zibibbo was another excellent name for a pet) and Coste Ghirlanda, Giulia’s nearby vineyard, was also open to the hotel’s guests (though closed in the off-season).
Giulia was a captivating human, statuesque, with her white curls in messy braids. She had once been a professional basketball player but dreamed of being a hotelier. It was clearly her calling – with her presence, the hotel’s restaurant transformed into the intimacy of a living room.
Giulia moved from table to table, placing her hand on her guest’s shoulders and pulling up chairs to sit with them. Did she know everyone here or did it just seem like she did? It was hard to tell, and it created a certain magic, sleepover warmth.
When the aliens returned to their room, strawberry topped mini-muffins had been discreetly placed on a table, the bed had been turned down, and the wide glass window open to the sea had been delicately hung with a black-out curtain.
The next morning, the aliens awoke eager to stay in their bed forever. But there was so much to explore on this small island! Gaia in the reception office (did everyone in this hotel have G names?) opened yet another secret compartment to procure a snorkel mask and delicately-scented beach towels for their adventure.
The aliens decided to go experience the healing mud of the island’s most famous turquoise lake, Lago di Venere, named for Venus’s mirror. They scooped the rich green/black substance out from under the warm waters of the lake, slathered it all over their faces and bodies, and lay out on the sand. It was rich with sulfur and silica and probably some other stuff that’s good for skin (terrestrial and extraterrestrial) too.
Covered in mud, the aliens were proud of how normal they finally looked. They had not yet seen A Bigger Splash, the Luca Guadagnino film set on Pantelleria, but they knew that the star, Tilda Swinton, had enjoyed her time on this island (and she was also from another planet). When they eventually did see the movie, later that night, they decided it had too much murder and not enough geothermal experiences and spectacular vistas.
The aliens left Pantelleria feeling refreshed and renewed. They had new glowing skin (not its regular unearthly glow), names for their future pet pandas Dammusi and Zibibbo, and new friends (whose names all, for some reason, started with G).
As they were departing, Gaia ran out to gift them a tiny dammusi, made from the island’s stones, to bring back to their home planet. They set it on the dashboard of their spaceship and started googling all that amazing bedding (Giulia if you read this, we need that info!), hoping there was a store for it somewhere in their solar system.
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Nadja Spiegelman is, in her own words, an ‘exuberantly-haired’ writer. She authored I’m Supposed To Protect You From All This – a memoir about her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother – plus four graphic novels for children. She’s headed up both print (Blown Covers; Resist!) and online (The Paris Review) publications, focusing on feminism, poetry and the promotion of female artists. She’s currently editor-in-chief of literary magazine Astra, and the second issue, Filth, is available now.