How many?

How many years before the fire? How many years still looking up at the sky at night and seeing nothing but black? How many years of imagining a mirror up there above you, something to gaze into all wide-eyed to see something that looks just like you staring back, to see creatures who have spent all the days in their lives looking up wondering whether someone else is out there? How many minutes spent hoping that maybe we aren't alone at all? How many hours did we dedicate to dreaming up these people, dressing them up in bodies like ours and lives like ours and words like ours, in names that fit comfortably around our tongues and then giving them our hands to shake? How many days did we wait for them to give a reply? How many times did we send out exploratory ships and crews on voyages into the big endless blue, navigating between the stars using a tape measure, looking for some small hint that there are others out there too? How many times will we come back, shaking our heads in disappointment but our eyes glimmering with resolve because we are not giving up yet? How many seconds will we waste away, raking through the galaxies, only to prove that we are not alone out there? Surely we are not alone out there.