October First

            October has snuck up on me again.  I didn’t know yesterday was my last day of September.  I thought it was just a normal day—just one in a long series of days – beginning in ancient times (when did the first days start?  Were there days when the earth was hot and molten?  Or did they start with the oceans?  Or with the first single celled organisms? Or with the first human to discern the pattern of alternating light and dark?) Beginning in ancient times and extending out to the incomprehensible future.

            Of course there won’t be days after the sun runs down—when the photon blessings of that fiery orb no longer shower this blue green planet.  Though by that time, after an unimaginably long period of imperceptible cooling, we certainly won’t be around to notice and this blue green beauty will long ago have turned to white. Entirely frozen.  Forever frozen.  Will there be traces of us left beneath the miles of ice.  Will someone from a far distant planet earn whatever his equivalent of a PhD is by writing about the possibility of ancient life on the ice planet in the milky way revolving around a fading star? 

            Maybe with his super-tronic telescope he finds us one day.  And the revolutions and limited light are just right in that moment.  And he sees a brief shadow on his screen.  He sees a faint shape – an irregular shape – or a regular shape – but something that gets him dreaming about not being alone in the universe.

            The respectable people of his world encourage him to work on more productive topics – like refining time travel or improving holo-deck technology – but he is stubborn and refuses to listen.  And slowly, over time, his impossible evidence mounts.  Things that shouldn’t be there.  A morning glory seed that was caught in the act of sprouting.  A diamond on a metallic circle - with someone’s initials scratched in it.  Or maybe a pair of dirty underwear encased in amber – that leads him to the astonishing conjecture that these life forms had tube-like protuberances hanging from the bottom of their heart chamber.  His ridiculous persistence pays off and his theory wins grudging acceptance, though everyone knows it couldn’t really be true.

            Yes, it’s October.  Just another day and some new beginning.  Leaves falling faster.  Days growing shorter.  Up in the early morning darkness.  Dreaming of unreasonable persistence and of being discovered.