I had the strangest dream last night.

Somehow I ended up in a room somewhere talking to the Almighty. You know, God. It was kind of odd, because as I remember at first he wasn’t showing up in physical form. “How can you make physical that which is not?” or some such nonsense. Anyhow, after cycling through several different variations (including a huge Palm Pilot of some kind), he finally settled on the time-tested old man with a beard theme.

At least it was a face I could speak to.

Anyhow, after discussing a whole lot of existential mumbo-jumbo (none of which I remember), I asked, “Are there other inhabited worlds?”

He looked at me with the saddest expression, and I swear a tear was running down his cheek.

“You’ll have to ask the angels, but I know for sure there are still eleven.”

“Eleven?” I asked. “Eleven in the entire galaxy?”

“Eleven in the entire universe,” he replied, now sobbing openly.

I woke up right after that, profoundly disturbed.

Eleven inhabited worlds in our galaxy would be bad enough, but in the entire universe? We’d might as well be totally and completely alone if that were the case…