fermi's paradox
the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results
The Fermi paradox, he says, is a contradiction between probability and the evidence presented to us from the Void. The Void is the macrocosm of the universe, and the probability that we’re not the only ones in it is presumed to be quite high.
He recites all of this like he is giving you a Ted Talk on an obscure phenomenon and not a subject you went over countless times throughout the smattering of Astronomy and Exploration of Deep Space courses you registered for in college for the sole purpose of piling on units and scoring easy A’s.
The Fermi paradox—right, the aliens either don’t exist because we’re exceptionally rare and special and it’s a miracle that we’ve made it this far, or the aliens are assholes who all want to kill each other and we’re lucky they haven’t found us yet, or we’re about as interesting to them as that guy who hit on you in the line at the supermarket who was somewhat attractive at first until he opened his mouth and it became clear that his entire essence was a big bowl of unseasoned mashed potatoes and not really worth further taste testing. And if you take the average of the human race as a whole you end up with about the same, or actually probably much much worse than that guy, and it’s really no wonder the aliens don’t want to speak to us beyond the rushed, cursory glances they toss our way while out running their inter-dimensional errands. So really the Fermi paradox is about dating and putting yourself out there, and really the question is where have all the good ones gone? and the answer is they’re still there and have always been there and simply have no desire to speak to you. But this is just one theory of many.
Your freshly demoted ex-boyfriend continues his rambling lecture as you climb the steps to the observation deck even though he knows you already wrote an essay on all of this for that elective you didn’t need to take. But his need to explain isn’t condescending so much as self-indulgent, as he fully knows that you know but just wants some excuse to talk to you about anything, and what easier route to fall back on than something that the two of you already know. It should be annoying but is actually just endearing, as are all the other flaws and pet peeves that should get you grinding your teeth but instead make you feel a rush of sweetness towards him, a brief resurgence of overwhelming affection that makes it all the more confusing as to why you no longer want him.
You think of your past relationships. Past fixations. Whenever you have loved, passionately, desperately, it’s always a self-serving exercise, an indulgence of the senses, and whenever you have hated, whenever you’ve despised someone so brutally the loathing sloshes around in your spinal cord like accumulated little beads of anger in a bamboo rainstick, it’s all for them, every lingering glare, every spiteful caress, every line that is crossed along parallel paths that are never to meet in tenderness. When you are enamored, you are indifferent. It is only in hatred that you truly fall the way that lovers should. So yes, you love him in a way, but in all his perfection this man can never be your soulmate, because he has not once been your enemy.
He asked to take you here one more time. You said alright even though you’ve driven up this mountain before, climbed these same granite steps, slotted your grimy change into the telescope bolted onto the balustrade even though the lens is so scratched up and clouded over that you can hardly see the trees dimpling the peak across from you, let alone the moon, let alone the universe. And when you think about it, you’ve probably had this same conversation before too, the one where he explains the Fermi paradox to you as if it’s the first time you’ve heard of it and you let him, even as the deja vu grows and grows like a thick fungus caulking the wrinkles of your brain, of your memory, the topography of time and space in which this thing the two of you keep trying and trying never seems to work out. He’s nudged your side before, shuffled you into place as he coaxes the barrel towards some blemish in the sky that’s supposed to be a star cluster if you really look for it, if you really just try to see. You nod and say it’s beautiful, but he knows you’re lying, sees through all your bullshit somehow, or maybe he’s the one bullshitting and there are no stars behind the smudge of a fingerprint nobody bothers to wipe away, and he’s aimed the telescope at nothing before asking you to look through it, waiting for you to ooh and ahh so he can have the satisfaction of seeing through all your bullshit and confirming that there’s no one else under the sky who knows you the way he does. And that part might be true.
Like all the other times, you talk about the button. You switch places, wait for him to crouch towards the eyepiece before leaning your weight against his back, enjoying the cool leather of his jacket on your brow. Your arms circle him on instinct even though you said that it’s over, even though you said to him over a box of leftover sushi this morning that this isn’t going to work out—trying to keep a straight face with the wasabi fumes shooting up your nose—that you had become two different people, as if everything would be solved if you were the same person, had all the same thoughts and memories and knowledge, if he didn’t have to explain things to you and you didn’t have to bullshit him. You’re different people now and probably have been since the beginning, even before you started noticing it, and now it’s over.
And he said okay. He said, let’s go see the stars one more time. So he doesn’t flinch when you embrace him from behind because you’ve done all of this before, or at least some version of it, maybe not on this mountain, or this viewpoint, and maybe you’ve never looked through this particular telescope on this particular observation deck, but some version of this has definitely happened at the very least under the same sky, and in every single iteration you talk about the button.
— If I were part of an advanced alien civilization, I would create a button that would erase everything. It would bring everything back to zero in a great Big Bang. A hard reset. Not destruction, I’m not talking about an apocalypse. I mean like it never even happened at all.
— Why would you want to do that?
— I said I’d create it, not that I would push it. Obviously they haven’t pushed it either. Or we would have proof that they exist.
— We wouldn’t have proof of anything. We’d be dead.
— Not dead. Reset.
— Maybe they have pushed it then, and this is the… seventy-fourth try. The nth attempt at a perfect timeline.
His indulgence fills you with that sweetness again, and it becomes clear to you that this is the true answer, that you have solved the paradox, that they are out there and they’ve seen us and we’ve seen them, more clearly than two entities have ever seen each other before, and it’s happened again and again and again because for whatever reason it just never seems to work out. You nuzzle his spine. His hands flutter over yours, clutching them over the soft part of his stomach. He straightens up, and he’s not looking through the telescope anymore, and even though you can’t see his face or his eyes you can tell that he’s not looking at the sky either.
— I think we’re getting closer, don’t you?
— I wouldn’t know. These aliens must be crazy. You know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
— I do know that.
— Do you think this time will stick?
— Nah. They must have been fed up for a while now. They’ll push it any second.
— Are you afraid?
— No. Don’t you think it would be nice to start over again?
— We would make the same mistakes.
Your finger slips into his navel, scoping out the divot over the thin cotton of his T-shirt. He shudders, then twists round and gently pushes you away by the shoulders, just a little nudge, but he doesn’t take a step back so you just stand there breathing each other’s air, and because he pushed you away and sees through all your bullshit you start to fall in love with him again just a little. But you’ve already said that it’s over, you’ve already revealed the button and now all that’s left to do is push it so you can go back to the beginning and do it all again. You wait and wait for someone to push the button, but nobody ever does, and it all comes back to Fermi’s paradox, because surely in all of the great big universe there must be someone out there, and there must be some sort of button, and if probability favors it, then why has no one pushed it yet? The heart of the problem is, to put it simply, where the hell is everybody?
You try sending out a telepathic message, hoping that someone, somewhere out there has been waiting for your singular brain wave to travel trillions upon trillions of light years, carrying the go-ahead signal that will restore everything to ground zero. You wait for the sky to go white, for your minds to go blissfully blank, your souls to ribbon off the bone like coruscating confetti, for your memories of this day to be vaporized along with the rest of time, all so that you can do it again, everything leading back up to this exact moment, this moment where you tip your chin up to kiss him, to trace never mind onto his lips, and this time he lets you, just like in all the timelines before, and all of the ones to come.
And it isn’t so bad existing like this, you think. To reach out into the ether even if no one ever reaches back. To live without divine—or extraterrestrial—intervention. To live like nobody’s listening. Nobody will blink an eye if you ruin it all. There are no take-backs. Only do-overs, and deja vu, and the privilege to make the same mistakes.