The space craft appeared in the sky like a flash of lightening before a storm. And a storm is what it brought, raining down destruction and devastation upon the earth.

Small, swift and seemingly indestructible, it whizzed around the globe like an angry wasp stinging anything in sight, with lasers, missiles and other weapons far beyond the advancements of anything mankind had created.

Every army was helpless against it. The craft was too superior in speed, durability and fire power. But most of all it fought and attacked in an erratic, unpredictable pattern, never fully committing to one cause of action, seemingly getting bored of a manoeuvres or attack strategy moments after engaging in it.

In just a few hours the craft had travelled most of the globe, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. The entire planet was in such a state of emergency, panic and distress that it took a while before the world governments realised that the craft was only attacking countries with a strong military force. And even then it didn't attack any cities, towns or villages. It also never fought or used it weapons over areas dense with nature, or filled with animal populations. For whatever reason it was attacking, it showed a very high regard for natural, innocent, and animal life. The craft seemed only interested in the game of war with those whom could play it.

Once all governments realised that those countries too weak to defend themselves were safe there were panicked meetings in boardrooms, heated by arguments for and against the seemingly only two options left:

One, drop all weapons and hope that, with no one left to fight, this seeming surrender of arms would cause the space craft to leave the planet. Or, two, continue to fight on until the possible ultimate defeat of all forces, along with the inevitable lose of thousands of soldiers lives.

Some said surrender was madness, as all attempts to communicate with the craft had failed, so there was no way to know if the craft would simply leave or if the aliens flying it would land, conquer and enslave the human race. Others said that the loss of life already, and the more they would lose, was too great, and all efforts should be concentrated on the maintaining of all human lives, including soldiers ready to die for their country.

But before any of the military countries could decide a second space craft, ten times larger than one that had been attacking the earth, suddenly appeared in the sky with a sound as loud as thunder. The small space craft stopped attacking and retreated into the confines of the larger craft, and the planet held its breath, waiting to see if this bigger craft had to come to finish the job the smaller one had started, or not.

The crafts shot out an electrical beam into the sky and suddenly every TV, radio and computer in the world switch on, broadcasting a message from the alien craft. Those that had a TV or computer saw that the aliens resembled human's a lot; they had bodies like us, with two arms and two legs, but they had larger heads, an extra eye on their forehead, nostrils but no nose, and mouths but no lips. There were four little ones that were obviously children, standing in the background, look sadly down at the floor, surrounded by three male looking aliens who were staring at the kids with disappointment. A forth male alien stood in front of the camera with a serious expression on his face, and spoke:

'I am Zane, a father from a planet light years away from here, and I would like to apologise. You see there has been very big cultural misunderstanding. When our kids did not come home for lunch we fathers went looking for them and discovered them here. It seems our children stumbled across your planet, and on seeing how you warred and fought each other, they believed you were playing a game of war and so thought they would join in. They did not know that this was your way of being, as war on our planet is a joke. Where we are from it is unheard of for a species to fight and kill each other over petty things like race and religious beliefs when on a genetic level you are all the same, and over land, when there is enough for everyone. And to actually destroy the very planet which sustains your life, along with the creatures with whom you share it, is seen as utter madness in our culture. On our planet suck behaviour is only demonstrated by children who know no better, and so are allowed to play in these silly, childish ways until they grow up and mature and leave such childish notions behind. Which is why our children thought they had simply found new play mates. But still, we are sorry for our children's behaviour. Rest assured they have learned a lesson in the primitiveness of other species, and they shall not return. I hope one days your species also appreciates what happened here today. May you rebuild and be blessed. Goodbye.'

And with that the space craft left, never to return. And everyone on the planet was left to contemplate how children had mistaken human way of life as nothing but a child's game.

END