Standing on the crumbling surface of a dwarf planet, you watch as tendrils of light dance across the earth, chasing shadows as the sun creeps over the horizon. Daybreak sees a glow briefly rising and crashing upon these ruins, the sun their only visitor since times unknown. Camped beside your spacecraft, sifting through the wreckage of a dead civilization, you feel a loneliness more acute than that of total abandonment; the loneliness of absence, of the empty spaces where life once thrived, but no longer. As the light becomes too bright to bear, as the sun reaches a terrifying fullness of form, you think back on your journey, hoping to at least find companionship in memory.
Then, from your scanner, a gurgle of static resolves into a sharp tone: the mournful song of a harmonica. Somewhere out there, someone is watching the same sight you are, feeling that same tug of homesickness, fear, and awe. Even in the darkest recesses of space, you are never truly alone.
