Phantasos Read Online Free PDF

the gentle chirping of cicadas lulling him to sleep.
    But Alley, sweet Alley, too good for this world Alley, showed no signs of tiring. Benji suspected it was because his birthday party was the next night.
    “It has been a lovely night,” Alley said in a mock British accent. He was staring at the stars, just as he had been for most of the evening. “I don’t think I’ve been bit by a mosquito once.”
    Benji yawned. “Me neither, Al,” and he thought to say: maybe it’s time we head inside for the night. But Alley’s face was so filled with wonder, staring up at the cosmos, that he didn’t dare.
    “Do you think there’s aliens up there looking back down at us?”
    Benji chuckled and thought for a moment. “Whether I say yes, or whether I say no, the answer is kind of spooky. It’s too late for me to start having such gnarly thoughts. They’d keep me up all night.”
    Alley continued to press the subject anyways. “Have you ever heard of a guy named Fermi?”
    “Fermi?” Benji asked, and he leaned forward, picked up the bag of marshmallows, and skewered one onto the stick he’d been using to cook with all night.
    “Yeah, Fermi,” Alley said. “The guy has a paradox named after him.”
    Benji smiled, thought: Fermi, paradox, space? Despite being a grade behind him, Alley was always so much smarter than he was, and Benji suspected that Alley was about to prove that point again. “No, Al. I’ve never heard of him.”
    “Okay,” Alley said. “Well what Fermi basically said, was this: With the universe being as old as it is, and as big as it is, there should be a bunch of solar systems out there, with suns like ours and earths like ours. So, with the high probability of so many other planets that could nurture life, where is everyone?”
    Benji shoved a burnt marshmallow between two graham crackers. All the chocolate was gone. “I don’t know, Al…what do you mean?”
    “I mean, everything is in place for another civilization to have visited us by now—or, at the very least, send us a radio message saying ‘hi’—and they haven’t. Why don’t they want anything to do with us?”
    “If an alien civilization ever visits Grand Ridge, I hope Sigourney Weaver is in town that day.”
    “I’m being serious, Ben,” Alley said, and he threw a piece of stale graham cracker at his friend.
    Benji said, “Maybe they have visited us, and we just don’t know it yet.”
    Alley laughed. “Well that’s a scary thought. I never thought of that. Yikes.”
    The two chuckled, and after a pause Alley said, “Well, where I was going with all of this was…it’s a big universe to feel so alone in, you know? And I wonder, if it’s so big, if there’s a heaven and where it is?”
    Benji stopped smiling, stopped laughing. He started to chew on his s’more slower. It was absolutely dreadful whenever Alley got stuck in a depressing train of thought like this, and Benji couldn’t stand it. He didn’t want to think of how sick his best friend was, and all the reasons why he would have thoughts like this. He tried not to be saddened by it, tried to pep up and answer his friends question honestly.
    “Maybe it’s there and we just can’t see it,” he said.
    Alley looked around at the campfire, then back up at the stars. “I think maybe heaven is right here, right now. Maybe this is heaven.”
    Benji smiled and said, “I hope not. If so, heaven is out of chocolate.”
    By now, Lauren was starting to squirm, curled up in her chair. She opened one eye and looked over the dying embers of the campfire. “What are you two zeeks going on about?”
    “Oh, you know,” Benji said. “The nature of the universe. Basic campfire chit-chat.”
    Lauren stood up, stretched her arms and legs, and let out a roar of a yawn. “C’mon, Alley. We gotta get back or mom and dad will kill us. It’s gotta be past midnight.”
    Alley waved towards the house across the street. “Uh, they know where we are. They can see us from the