If an alien came to earth how would you show it love?

For more than a week, the nights had been sweltering, the air thick with humidity and not a hint of breeze.  The evening news kept predicting blessed rain, but always at the end of the ten-day forecast.  No matter how close the days crept to the prediction, the rain stayed out of reach.

Naomi wheeled her TV cart to her farmhouse's front window and sat outside to listen to the gentle babble over the sounds of crickets and peepers having sex in the fields and woods that surrounded her for miles.  A gentle stream would usually be heard, but that had dried up close to the start of this unholy summer.  She lay back in the hammock strung from the house to a pillar of the wide porch and wished for a breeze.  Tonight would be another night out here, she thought.  Is it ridiculous to drag out a fan?

The thin, white, over-sized shirt she wore for pajamas was already clinging to her back and chest.  Living alone and so far out in the countryside, her house not even visible from the little-used road, Naomi thought maybe she'd go without, but her natural modesty wouldn't let her stray any further than the already daring nightwear.  She decided on a bowl of ice with a washcloth plus the fan.

Just as she swung her bare feet to the wide-planked porch boards, her television flickered and went out.  Naomi stood still to take stock.  The light in her kitchen was also out.  Conclusion?  She thought in her careful, scientific way.  No fan for me.  People with air conditioners loved to hog electricity, despite the warnings of brownouts and blackouts, and now look where it puts the more environmentally conscious.  In the dark.

Naomi let her eyes adjust.  She plotted out her route to her favorite flashlight, to the linen closet for a washcloth, and finally to her freezer for the quick removal of one tray of ice.  And a metal bowl.  She'd set it on her chest and absorb the chill until she had a bowl of water, but at least she might be able to sleep.  Before she implemented her plan, she was lured off her porch and on the dry dust of the path before her house.  The stars, without any light pollution, were brilliant, and she could see the long, dusty arm of the Milky Way.  It fascinated her as it always did, even though studying the stars was a part of her job.