Light Years Apart

The Nigerian night was doing its usual thing – a symphony of crickets and the distant hum of... well, something electronic from the main observatory building a kilometer away. Here in the Radio Astronomy Annex, it was quieter, almost reverent. Except for the insistent zzzz-whirr of the massive dish outside, patiently listening to the cosmos like a giant, metallic ear.

That was my life, pretty much. Laura, the girl who talked to stars (and sometimes herself when the data got particularly mind-numbing). Tonight, though, the usual cosmic white noise felt... different. Like someone had left a radio on in the next room, tuned just off-station. Irritatingly familiar, yet stubbornly wrong.

My lukewarm cup of instant coffee – the gourmet choice out here – sat neglected beside the monitor. For the past three hours, this weird little blip had been dancing across the spectrum. Not the chaotic burst of a supernova, not the predictable sigh of a dying star. This was... rhythmic. Almost like... a heartbeat? Okay, Laura, reel it in. Too much sci-fi again.

I zoomed in on the frequency, fingers flying across the keyboard. My colleague, Dr. Anya, would probably roll her eyes if she saw me this fixated. "Laura and her 'intelligent signals' again," I could practically hear her dryly comment during our next video call. Anya was brilliant, no doubt, but her idea of excitement was finding a new type of space dust. Mine involved, you know, actual aliens saying "hey." Even if it was in some bizarre cosmic Morse code.

Another blip. This one a little stronger. My own heart gave a sympathetic little thump against my ribs. It was probably just interference. A rogue satellite. My overactive imagination fueled by too many late nights and not enough human interaction. The closest I got to a chat these days was arguing with the temperamental coffee machine. (Spoiler alert: it usually won.)

But... what if? That tiny, rebellious voice in my head, the one that had dragged me into astrophysics in the first place, whispered the possibility. What if, across the unfathomable gulf of space and time, someone was actually trying to say hello?

I leaned closer to the screen, the faint blue light reflecting in my wide eyes. My breath hitched. The pattern was repeating. Three short bursts, a pause, two long ones. Over and over. It wasn't random. It had structure. It had... intent?

A nervous laugh bubbled up inside me. Me, Laura, the introverted astrophysicist who considered a lively debate with a particularly stubborn algorithm a social event, might be on the verge of... well, first contact.

"Okay, universe," I muttered to the silent room, my fingers hovering over the transmission controls. "Let's see what you've got." A ridiculous grin stretched across my face. This was either the most significant discovery in human history, or I was seriously overdue for a vacation. Either way, my night just got a whole lot more interesting. And maybe, just maybe, a little less lonely.