A Lover's Goodbye

He sat on the platform, the rain pouring down the brim of his hat.  He came here often when he needed to be alone, basking in the loneliness and solitude.   The flowing water filled in the little cracks and crevasses in the pavement, overflowing and spilling over onto the tracks.  In the distance a bell was heard tinkling its way down the track, reminiscent of some lost tune.  He thought of nothing, and yet he thought of everything.  He thought of her.  He drifted off into a long lost sea of memories.  Yet the man realized that she would soon be gone from his life forever, and that he could never get her back.


She sat in the station, staring out the window and gazing at the rain dripping down the arches.  Her rosy cheeks and her wavy hair carried an air of sadness.  She was lost in her thoughts.  Where was he now? The girl tried to cast out her memory of the night before; to forget the pain in her heart.  But she could not drop the images surfacing in her mind.  The words they had said.  The way the firelight flickered across the room.   The soft sighs each gave as the words were said.  The memory of lost love is the most difficult to shed.


It didn't end in hate.  It ended in love, and this can be the most painful of all.


The bell rang, miraculously able to wake her from her thoughts.  She gathered her things and slipped through the arch to the platform.


Yes, he saw her.  Her glowing visage brought light to his view, yet he knew he could say nothing.  This was best, it was the only way.  Her name, almost subconsciously leapt to his throat and perched itself on his tongue, but he stopped it before it fluttered out.  He watched her as she climbed aboard, her absence replaced by the dull monotony of the cloudiness.  She had not seen him.  He watched as the train lumbered slowly down the track.  His eyes followed it down, down, down until it vanished.  He stayed there the rest of the day, as the rain spilled over the tracks.

A Universe of Potential

On friday March 6th, a NASA astrobiologist announced that he had found evidence for the existence of extraterrestrial life in the form of fossilized bacteria which he claims to have found in a rare class of meteorites.
 Now, as a person of science, I am really skeptical.  Let me rephrase that: I am very skeptical.  Such things have been claimed before by many scientists in the past, so naturally I would like to see this scrutinized heavily.  Fortunately, I don't have to wait.  Dr. Richard Hoover's paper in "The Journal of Cosmology" is up for grabs for over 5000 scientists to pick apart.  But what will such a thorough investigation bring? Only time will tell.
Now, as for the implications of such a discovery being indeed validated; well, that is a little easier to predict.  Succinctly stated, it would change everything.  And as SETI researcher Jill Tarter stated in her 2009 TED talk, it would "change everything all at once." Such a discovery no doubt would have staggering implications in all aspects of the human experience, from politics to religion.  It would ultimately end the nagging question we have all asked: Are we alone? For if simple bacteria can exist in the vast reaches of space, it is completely reasonable that they could develop into intelligent species.  It would show that life is by no means a rarity in the universe, and that we are in fact one among many, floating in a cosmic ocean teeming with diverse and vivid life.
On a deeper level, it would bring comfort and solace to everyone here on earth.  No longer would we look up at the stars with a sense of loneliness.  Instead, we would be able to recognize that as a species we are one possibility in a universe of potential.  It would give us a connection to the universe which we would never before have known.  Suddenly, earth would no longer seem as small.
But it is still too early to know what the outcome will be.  It may turn out that this is just another false alarm, and that startling discoveries of this kind are still waiting to be found.  I do not know what the outcome will be, but I do know that the implications of such a find are truly humbling.