What If . . .

...There is no such thing as extraterrestrials,
only post-terrestrials (and pre-terrestrials).

...The vastness of space holds no alien life;
only across time can alien life forms emerge
(before or after us on the timeline).

...Earth is the virtual center of our creation.
We like to think of space as this sort of
"wide open area", like a vast room;
when in fact, space may be nothing of the sort.

Rather, it might be more like a vast labyrinth
comprised of the narrowest passages linking
to each other in an interminable array of
unpredictable twists and turns.

What if the wide gyre of sprawled starpoints
spread out before us in the night sky was
really nothing but the illumination reaching
us from long ago, now dead stars?

/end 'as if you haven't heard that before'
This would indicate that perhaps - the only
real, living portions of the universe are that
branch of the galaxy we are a part of. Said branch
would extend from our system from two (and only two)
directions; in one direction the remainder of our branch
of the Milky Way extends (of which we are roughly
three-fourths of the way along already); in the other
direction the branch of our galaxy upon which we are
situated extends towards the central hub.

One or both of these directions could be in our
"blind spots". They may extend just beyond the curve
of our cosmic horizons. All remaining stars spangled
and glittering across the night may be nothing but
backdrop afterglow, the galactic equivalent of a sort
of peripheral glare.

Only portions of our own branch of the galaxy,
extending in two directions from us,
might be glimpsed sunken brightly amidst the murk
and glare of all those lost stars beyond.