So, I was thinking.

Alpha Centauri is the closest star system to Earth. (By closest, I mean 4.4 light-years away, and by system, I mean there are 3 stars, Proxima Centauri being a whopping 0.1 light-years closer to us than the other two.) If there was ever any life around these stars, shouldn't we have been shaking hands by now? I mean, come on. 4.4 years to get some FM waves up in diz atmosphere? What gives?

Sarah, you're white. Really, really white. Stop.

So at this point in time, it's probably safe to say that there's no intelligent life in any of the nearby star systems, right? We haven't picked up any true signals the entire time we've been searching, so that's grounds of a good decision, right?

No, not really. That's actually really wrong.

Do you remember the first satellites ever launched by man? Sputnik 1? Explorer 1? Despite their gargantuan carrier missiles, do you remember how small they were?

Things haven't really changed. We're still launching little tater tots into our orbit every year. Little pieces of the space station, little satellite devices for ultimate control of your little cellular devices in your pocket, they're all little breakfast crumbs sitting on our Solar system's dining room table, controlling your life and your mind.

What if we haven't been the only civilization to do this?

What if, just like our little trooper 'tot Voyager 2, some other form of "mankind" has ricocheted some sort of mini alien breakfast food past the outskirts of their star system?

What if for some weird reason, that little table scrap made it all the way to our Solar system? What about if for some even weirder reason, it flew by Earth? What if it got sucked into orbit around us?

The International Space Station had to be jetted back up into a higher orbit not too long ago because the lasso that Earth's gravity has on it got yanked one too many times. What happens when things get too low in orbit? Bacon and eggs in a sizzling pan, that's what happens. Whoops, grease fire.

So, about that little foreign nugget, say all of this "Hey, I'm gonna fly by Earth and get stuck in its orbit because I'm awesome" hoo-hah happened at the dawn of the homo sapiens species. This may have been the only evidence of other intelligent life we've ever received from this corner of the galaxy, and may be the last we'll get for another 1.8 billion years. Who and what was stopping it from circling our home long enough to get burnt up, to be cast out of existence without a trace? No one, because we didn't know any better. We were infants in the life of ourselves. There was nothing we could have done.

If no one's around when a tree falls in a forest, does it still make a sound? There's squirrels, birds, mosquitoes, and raccoons to hear it. It damn sure does.

British Lit Is Not Physics 101

One day, a random stranger may decide to reach out and touch my soul and tell me I can have anything in the world I want. I'll reach back and tell this unfamiliar friend that the only thing I would want in my hands by such an unbelievable gift might be something that's not in this world at all. I'll tell this new face that anything they can give me may only be as vast as the speck of dust suspended in an ordinary sunbeam that we happen to inhabit.

They'll tell me of all the emotions I'm disregarding, and how with that mindset, I can never experience the greatest Earthly feeling of all: love. I'll tell them that what I want, I only want because of love—love of existence, love of another's presence—the love of life itself.

They'll tell me of all the gold and shiny diamonds I'm passing up, and of all the wealth I'm not considering. I'll tell them that money only has value because we all agree that a chipped and shaped piece of Earth's property has a number latched onto it. I'll remind them of how any symbol on any mix of our planet's elements won't matter when there is no one left to apply the meanings.

They'll tell me I'm no fun because I want no backstage access at my favorite concert I can't afford to go to, or no encounters with any of my biggest heroes, be they Jesse Lacey, Carl Sagan, or the fictional characters from the books of Chuck Palahniuk. I'll tell them that fun is only a delusion measured within the mind; I'll tell them we can manipulate the idea of a good time to whatever we want it to be.

This conversation will go on for awhile before my revelation. We'll go back and forth, understanding the other's rationale no better, no matter how much humble reason flows from our human lips. Eventually, I'll tell them that all I want is knowledge.

The thing is, I don't want just any knowledge. I want to know one thing, and I want it to be negative or affirmative. I'll ask the stranger, “Are we alone?” When they don't understand, I'll ask, “Who else is out there?”

If more than six billion people and millions of species are truly solitary in the vastness of all the cosmos, the generous friend I've never known will let me down lightly. Since this magnificent being's power ends outside the Earth's exosphere, a blank answer will tell me more than I ever believed I could know in my lifetime. There is more. We are not the end.