By Thomas Davis
I was sitting in my dream talking
to this being not from a human woman’s womb,
but who looked human, almost.
“Your galaxy has around three hundred billion suns,” it said.
“There’s maybe two trillion galaxies,
each galaxy with billions of suns.”
It smiled at me, although I wasn’t sure
what I was seeing was a smile.
“Planets are more common than suns.
The question you keep asking yourself is:
with all those planets,
why haven’t you found intelligent life?”
It stretched legs and arms not quite legs and arms.
“The truth is,” it said casually. “Intelligence is aggressive.
A blob of life rises from primordial soup,
competes with other blobs.
Intelligence conjures
from the blobs that figure out how to survive.
. . . and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea,
and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle,
and over all the earth,
and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”
“The problem is,” it continued.
“Intelligence is necessary to communicate outward,
trying to find planets where intelligence
has been aggressive enough to understand
it couldn’t possibly be alone in the universe.
“But, before two aliens can find each other:
fusion wars, pandemics, populations that can’t control themselves
and breed until destroyed through mass starvation,
greenhouse gases that drive planets out of control,
or the former blobs have become intelligent enough
come to understand intelligence is the problem
and take up navelgazing rather than trying to communicate . . .”
It shrugged, looked, glittering, into my eyes.
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