“I mean, how would you know? They could be microscopic. The aliens could even be smaller than atoms. They could be here already. They could be inside you. In your guts. Crawling up your colon, coming out your...”

“Okay, I think that’s enough information.”

A phone from the office upstairs rang out, sounding almost like a fire alarm, interrupting the group discussion.

“This place has a rotary phone in the office.”

“A typewriter too.”

“What’s a rotary phone?”

“But do aliens believe in Jesus? That’s what I’m wondering.”

“Yo, you’re fricking right the aliens believe in Jesus. God created Jesus so He created aliens too.”

“Aliens are God’s creatures. I bet the aliens have churches, megachurches and shit ... Aliens on some intergalactic Joel Osteen shit...”

“Please watch the language!”

In the windowless basement of the church, the support group sat in a circle. Most of the participants were somewhere between 30 and 50. The oldest seemed to be the haggardly motorcycle lady, at around 60 or so. The motorcycle lady sat looking extremely disinterested. Her legs were tightly crossed, and she cocked her head to the side, rolled her eyes, and brushed a long lock of stringy gray hair behind her ear. Then she went back to biting her nails.

The youngest of the group was maybe 20, a catatonic ginger with a chipmunk face. The ginger was dressed in all black and sat, expressionless, in an electric wheelchair, his hands balled into fists and his crystal blue eyes fixed on the cream-colored tile floor.

“My turn? Yup. Okay, like, I used to think I saw dead people, ghosts. Like that kid in the movie.”

“Isn’t that kid dead now?”

“I heard he got put in jail for smoking crack and stealing a car.”

“Happens to every child star. Except the Home Alone kid. He turned out alright. I think.”

“Nah, the Home Alone kid made racist comments about Asians and got cancelled. I read about it on Twitter.”

“Wait, isn’t he married to an Asian?”

“That gives him NO excuse!”

The ginger in the wheelchair coughed loudly, then swallowed his phlegm.

“Me? Yeah. Well, uh, just last night I talked to my sister, for the first time in years. She’d gotten hooked on meth. Then robbed a 7-11 at knifepoint. Then stole her ex-boyfriend’s sister’s car. Then did two years in a federal penitentiary, came out covered in tattoos.”

“Face tattoos?”

“Yup, a big red pentagram on her forehead. I saw it on Facebook.”

“Nah, that’s not going to help with the job search. Can you imagine being an HR person, calling someone in for an interview, and then the applicant walks in, has face tattoos, a flipping pentagram on their head? Geez Louise.”

“Then the face-tattoo-person turns back to crime. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“Well, face tattoos are far more accepted these days. But maybe not a pentagram.”

“Actually, she got a job as a customer service rep for a moving company. Works from home, from her trailer.”

“That’s weird, man. Picture that, calling up to ask a question and you’re talking to someone with a tattoo of a pentagram on their head.”

“Better than someone from India. I can’t understand their accents.”

“That’s racist.”

“Racist that I can’t understand what they’re saying? Really?!”

“You and the Home Alone kid. You’re both racists!”

“Cool it, you two.”

“My sister got trained for phone work in prison. It was part of her vocational classes, taking customer service calls. She also learned telemarketing.”

“Oh my God, I am never screaming at another telemarketer.”

“Yo, for sure you better not yell at that telemarketer. That telemarketer breaks out of prison, hunts down your ass.”

“Please watch your language.”

Heading the group was a frumpy woman in her 30s. She had freckly, pallid skin and bushy blond hair that’d been tied into a thick ponytail. She wore a gray pantsuit and shiny black shoes that appeared too formal for the occasion, making her look more like a businesswoman than a counselor. Her voice was throaty yet strangely stentorian.