"This may be the answer to curing your common cold, you know", said the alien being, chuckling as much as his withered body would permit.

Standing across the room was a tall man with a sad look on his wrinkled face. The golden sunlight reflecting off his glasses hid his eyes- dark green eyes that were weary from months of fruitless research. He didn't look away from the window when he said, "Only you could be thinking of how to cure a cold in these times."

"At least I'm able to think." The being, simply referred to by humans as David, exhaled heavily. "Isn't that something that you, a scientist can appreciate?"

The man, Dr. Ashok Bali, rested his head against the glass pane. The streets outside were empty. This had been a ghost city for the last three months.

"I can. But is it worth it?"

"To die in thought, or live in ignorance- now isn't that a dilemma. I can think, so here I am, having this conversation with you." He stopped to take a draught of water. "But if I couldn't think, I would have had many children. I would have spent my three years outside of this lab. Those streets would not be empty.

"But if I couldn't think, those streets and this lab would not exist at all." He took a long breath and set his empty glass down.

Ashok finally turned around to see David looking at himself in the mirror.

"No, I don't think anti-wrinkle cream will work on this face," David said, laughing.

"Why didn't you have children?" asked Ashok.

"A bachelor who lives for science would ask me that question?"

"But you knew your people were heading this way...that there weren't enough children."

"So there would have been a few offspring, and what then? My whole generation, and the one before, and the one before, we all spent our lives trying to find the solution. Before I was born, we knew it was hopeless, but we didn't give up. What makes you think my children, or anyone else's children, would have given up?"

Ashok was hearing his own questions asked, of course. But he had no answers.

"We could have taught them not to reach for the impossible; to live free and keep the species alive. That's how it was done before..." he said.

"Ashok. If you knew that you had but three years of life, what would you do? So many questions, so much to learn...wouldn't you yearn for just a little more time to have those questions answered?"

The man looked away. Of course he would- even his own life, infinitely long by comparison to David's, wasn't enough. How much more he had to learn! How much more would only be uncovered long after he was dead!

"'Survival of the fittest'; the basis of natural selection. We mutated and evolved to think, but our very nature renders this a liability. We, the thinkers, weren't fit to survive in our species."

Ashok shook his head. "Who would have thought that nature would favor the stupid?" He almost laughed. What if natural selection had eliminated man, only favoring the less intelligent primates?

"Nature is cruel sometimes." He took off his glasses and rubbed his tired eyes. "Its amazing to think that in spite of all we've learned, despite all our technology, we still cant tame her."

David laughed, coughing as he did so. "You can't rewrite God's code and expect results, no matter how hard you try.

"After all, you remember what happened to Earth because of man's attempts to change entire genomes. A product of countless generations of nature's work can't be re-written in an instant...I understand that now, at the very end. If a virus were to live longer, it would be because of nature's doing."

Ashok spun around, scowling. "Damnit, there you go again! You're not a virus."

"Rapid mutations, highly adaptive, short lives. We lived to propagate the species and nothing more. Do I need to get into this argument with you again?"

"Every species lives to propagate. The only thing unique about a virus is its parasitical nature. They consume every living resource they can, and when it's exhausted, they move on. Is that what your people do?"

"By your definition, humans are about as viral in nature as viruses themselves."

Ashok just glanced out the window and didn't say anything. This was something fourteen year olds brought up as philosophy.

David continued. "You're just being dramatic, as usual. Whole ecosystems would collapse without viruses- they're as much a part of life's cycle as you and I. It's not like I'm insulting myself."

"You sure phrase it like an insult."

"And you read into what I say too much. You can't deny the biological similarity."

"A virus is an unintelligent strand of genetic code. You, on the other hand, became complex enough to think! Tell me what virus in existence can do the same?"

David looked at Ashok sarcastically. "Look at what the ability to think brought us. Those simple, oblivious creatures live on. Even other branches of my own species continue to thrive. But the smart ones- me and my kin- go extinct.

"Think about it! Before we became 'intelligent', our lifestyle was no different than a virus. All you have to do to cure the common cold is to teach it to think, and 'Boom'! Soon enough, you'll have a microscopic race of philosophers, and then nothing." He laughed at the joke, which Ashok didn't really find funny.

"Would you open the window, please?"

Ashok walked over to a panel by the window and pushed a button on it. Immediately, the glass pane slid away, and the wind came rushing in. It felt good, and the air was clean, unpolluted. There were, after all, no cars outside anymore.

The man closed his eyes and stood there, ignoring the papers that had been blown off the desk on the other side of the room. He really spent too much indoors, breathing processed, sterilized atmosphere. Perhaps that was the one good thing about the long research term coming to an end- now he'd have time to savor nature for what it was, rather than analyze it under a microscope.

David had to take a few deep, raspy breaths, but a drink of water was all he needed. He rose from the chair, wearily, and walked over to Ashok's side.

"Look at the sunset. You know what I see?"

The landscape, bathed in golden light from the planet's star, was exactly what Ashok was looking at. "Why don't you tell me?"

"I see a big ball of hydrogen that sustains itself through nuclear fusion in its core. I see beams of light that took nine minutes to travel from that ball to where we are now, and I see those beams bouncing, refracting off every crevice in this landscape in such a way that my eyes can form a picture of it. It almost seems morbid, doesn't it?"

Ashok smiled for the first time. "Not at all. I see where this is going."

David nodded. "I also see a radiant sun casting its full glory on this world. I see a symphony of color that would make the most achieved artist weep with joy. I see designs that would drive ordinary people mad with appreciation, yet leave them always questioning why God's brilliance manifests in this surreal manner.

"But I understand how this image forms. And because of that, it seems all the more beautiful to me- that simple concepts we can reduce to mere numbers can possibly form things as grand as this."

Ashok knew exactly what David meant. It was why he was a scientist, after all.

Of course they couldn't rewrite God's code. For all they knew, for all they'd learned, so many failed to appreciate the inherent beauty in the universe.

"So to answer your earlier question, Ashok, yes. It is worth it. Even if my species wont live to appreciate this gift...this amazing thing we call 'thought', I would much rather die with this understanding of God's design, than live a so called 'successful' life in total ignorance."

His legs were tired. He started walking back to his chair. "Even extinction plays its part in whatever higher plan there is. I can say with full confidence that in spite of everything, my existence was not meaningless."

Ashok crossed his arms and continued to look at the horizon, breathing the fresh air. "Did I tell you I was atheist?"

"You did. In a sense, so am I. But you already knew that."

"So why this sudden talk about God and fate?"

David had almost no energy left, but he managed to laugh a little. "Einstein once said 'God does not play dice', didn't he? Yet he didn't believe in God."

Now it was Ashok's turn to laugh. "I knew you were going to quote him.

"We may not believe in God in the same way as the church, but we believe in something."

David nodded. "One day, we'll see the face of God and know the truth. As long as we keep thinking, keep questioning." He smiled. "I might learn the answer before you do, my friend."

"Yes...until then, you'll keep thinking about it." Ashok bowed his head. "And so will I, until I die."

"My curse, yet my gift to die in thought."