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There is a xenomorph inside every one of us

In space, no one can hear you sigh

Visionary psychoanalyst and champion cocaine fiend Sigmund Freud explored the idea of the “death drive,” or Todestrieb in German, the impulse humans have to obliterate themselves, in his 1920 book Beyond the Pleasure Principle. I learned this in Psychology 101, a required class I often attended while high on marijuana or Robitussin (but never, ever cocaine, because it was expensive).

According to Freud, people, average everyday people, are mesmerized by the comforting promise of annihilation as much as they are drawn to life-affirming pleasure. The only foolproof way to avoid the pain of existence is to cease existing.

I have flirted with this urge. Who hasn’t? I’ve stared out the windows of office towers and wondered, “What if I jumped?” I’ve pondered the same question standing on subway platforms. I think, perhaps, so much of human achievement originates from the death drive. It’s likely the only reason we know that certain berries are poisonous is because one of our ancestors asked, “What is this?”

And were I ever to encounter an alien egg, or the ovomorph, the first stage in the lifecycle of the lethal extraterrestrials from the movie Alien, I would probably…