I often wonder where people get their weird ideas from. You know, like wanting to fly, so we invented the plane. Or wanting to breathe underwater and hence the submarine. Then to explore outer space and we built rocket ships. We are a race of explorers of the unknown. WE have always wondered what's out there. It seems kind of disappointing to say that "Hey. Sorry but you've reach the end of the universe. No more out there for you to explore." But all good things come to an end. The era of external exploration has reached its end. WE have reached our physical limits for physical exploration. You know that feeling, when a world has been completely and utterly discovered and the ending has finally arrived. Like reaching the end of a video game, all possible goals have been accomplished. Now just imagine it on a much grander scale. No more objective remains for exploration. We have reached the end of the universe. The impossible has now been made possible. Physically, externally, no more impossibility remains. And Geez what a disappointment. What we found at the end of the universe is a random little star. A very random ordinary star. Even more random, more ordinary and smaller than Earth itself. The unremarkable star holds the very unremarkable message for all of us on Earth for our remarkable attempt to search for answers. And sadly, it is an answer none of us Earthlings would appreciate. Those kind of answers which flatten the question completely and to top it all off, the answer has to flatten the question with ultimate boredom and randomness. And after the answer, the whole race of Earthlings have to deal with the worser question. "What Now?" "Now What?" For a long time, no one quite knew how to react to the discovery at the end of the universe. WE have always been prepared for the worse. WE imagine the worse that perhaps, it is an infinity, it just stretches on forever it will be like trying to find the end point of two parallel mirrors where the reflection stops. Or we thought, perhaps at the end of the universe, we would find NOTHING. Appalling nothing and turn around and head back home and announce that there is nothing at the end of the universe. Even the thought of it all being a grand old joke as we pull back into earth and find that the universe is really just a big circle. The kind where you just end up where you started off. Even that could have made perfect sense. I would have much prefer if the universe was really just a big circle. The universe would have been so much more elegant despite its senselessness. Now it is just a cheap joke made at our expense. The only thing is no one finds it funny when the joke's on you.

Our discovery really made a big impact on certain cultures. You know the kinds of societies which value exploration, knowledge and had some kind of pride in human intelligence. Not to mention it destroyed some of the world's religions, especially the promise that human had a special place in the scheme of things. After our discovery, there have been cases of devastated individuals wandering off cliffs, randomly ingesting toxic substance at toxic end of the universe parties. Only the pessimists were secretly happy that they were right for once. And of course for cultures where nothing really mattered, this was just one more additional matter which did not matter. Many thinkers who have been locked up for the longest time in asylums with crazies celebrated that they were finally acknowledged for their correct way of thinking. And they could finally prove to themselves that they were indeed "not crazy". This time it was backed by concrete evidence. The NASA crash followed when truckloads of scientists at the celebration party for discovering the end of the universe while dancing stiffly to geeky electronic music suddenly found themselves jobless. And without a meaning in life. I can't go so far as to speculate what would happen in the future. All I know that the future of space exploration is completely certified dead. I mean we can still try to locate other intelligent life somewhere out there in the universe, or warn some others, but what's the whole point. If no one bothered to warn us of our find which could have spared us the misery, why should we be charitable? Why rob some other race of intelligent life of their fair share of devastation right when they felt that they were at their most glorious. The universe is fair, the same shit is dished out to all kinds, everyone gets the same serving.

I guess I really should get to the crux of the story. The part about my landing on the star and my discovery. You know, this story could have been worth a whole lot more if only what we found turned out to be completely different. I could have been hailed as one of the heroes of this century and the next instead of being the biggest loser of all time breaking the bad news to everyone that we are all sad sad sad losers. Afterall I am very much into this space exploration thing for the fame and the glory and of course the curiosity, but who knew. So we landed on that unremarkable star. I hate the word unremarkable because it can never convey to you unremarkableness of it all. The space shuttle doors opened, and we are faced with this tiny thing. Not even a planet, just a tiny pathetic star. Here we were breathing exhiliarted. In total disbelief that we have finally made it, decked out in our finest gears. We were the representative of our race at this new frontier. The best and the brightest, bearing the beacon of hope to this unfamiliar territory bringing all the good will from our little blue planet. The doors open and there in front of us was this pathetic little building. It had holes of all shapes and sizes, a little bit like a weird looking cheese. And there we were looking at this ugly thing made out of what resembles cheap concrete on Earth, trying to make sense of it all. Expectations can be very deadly thing. We should have known there and then to turn around, walk back into the shuttle and head back home saying "Yep, there's nothing for us here." But you know we were too stupid to let it all sink in that "this is it" "This is all." Somewhere at the back of our head, we still expect more. We all thought there must be more grandeur behind this. We marched on still high from our triumphant landing.

The building was even more hideous up close than from afar. We filed in through one of the holes, the secret must lie in there we all thought. We were shocked to find that the interior was empty and equally grey, safe for a big sign somewhere in the distance. The sign was what undid us all.

The giant sign had lots of weird scribblings on it. We were amazed at our find, bemoaning the fact that we did not have some of linguistic experts on deck with us. We were rejoicing our finds which established for a fact that there were other intelligent lifeforms then we heard the robotic announcer.

'WELCOME. WE HAVE ESTABLISHED THAT THE VISITORS ARE FROM PLANET.....E.A.R.T.H. PLEASE CHOOSE THE DISPLAY LANGUAGE."

We must have picked English somehow because the scribbles on the sign then changed into perfect English. It read.

"Congratulations you have reached the end of the universe. This is originally the finishing point of a race for different races across the universe to participate in. The first race to find the end of the universe was to get the grand prize. The treasure hunt has long been over, yet we still get participants turning up hoping to claim a prize. WE are sorry to inform you that the game has been over for 4500000000000000000000000000000019000billion lightyears 3876000000000billion millenias 5090200000000000000000billion centuries and three days. We are sorry to inform you that you have lost the game. Try again next time. "

Below that there were the organizers' statement:
"This is a fair competition for various races spread across the universe. The incentive is to drive the development of intelligence and curiosity. All race are given equal opportunity and access to development of capacities despite variations in designs."

The information on the organizers at the bottom of the sign said " Not available. Organization no longer active."

For the longest time we just stood staring. Then we silently headed back to our ship and made our way home. All the way home we played Britney Spears music. Nothing ever sounded so good and meaningful. Her songs now made perfect sense.