Last Ghost. First Contact.

Through it all, the planet had continued spinning through the cosmic void.

Ahmed didn't keep a calendar, but if his reading of the stars was correct, it had been around four thousand years since the last human breath.

But, like the planet, Ahmed was still here.

Was this grim anniversary a cause for some sort of celebration? How do you properly commemorate the death of a species? Some might argue that humanity was as cool as dinosaurs. Dinosaurs had nuggets molded in their image.

It didn't really matter. As far as Ahmed knew, he was the last vestige of humanity. He was Earth's last ghost.

He wasn't the last human to die, but he’d been present at that event. He thought it might be his last opportunity to do something useful. Alas, that wasn't the case. As the last woman died of starvation, gasping and gulping, her glassy eyes looked in his direction.

Had she seen him?

Ahmed had never been particularly clear about ghost rules. Yes, he could walk through walls, but he wasn't sure how he stayed attached to the planet's surface. Even though he was no longer corporeal, he could pick some things up. He could pick up books, which he still enjoyed reading on occasion, but he couldn't pick up a person. Since his ability to interact with solid objects wasn't dependent on physical strength (since he wasn't physical), what was limiting him?

Fortunately for Ahmed, he could still pick up golf balls and golf… "sticks"? He didn't remember what they were called and lacked the interest to look it up. Ahmed became an avid mini-golfer in the afterlife. Since most mini-golf courses were composed of plastic, many remained untouched by the events that had terminated humanity.

It seemed as if everyone who'd predicted the end had at least part of the end times correct. War, nukes, famine, disease, civil unrest, weather anomalies, and a supervolcano. Humanity did it all, and Ahmed watched. He died almost 100 years before the bulk of these events. His end had been less dramatic: Icy steps outside a Cleveland apartment. He'd been running late for work. It began with that cliched out-of-body thing where he watched his body in the hands of the EMTs.

As the song says, "You don't realize what you got 'till it's gone." He missed concerts. Those were fun.

In the succeeding years, he "lived" out almost every hackneyed ghost scenario from movies and TV. He communicated with loved ones and said goodbye in their dreams. He even ushered a few through to the "light" - although he never saw the light personally. It was frustrating at times, but it didn't bother him. He figured his time would come eventually. He watched it come for everyone eventually. Other ghosts had been stuck for a time, but in the end, they all disappeared. He never did find out where they went.

There was even a living kid who saw him for about a week. It'd been interesting to have conversations with him for a little bit. It didn't take long for Ahmed to realize that kids are boring.

Ahmed lost interest and wandered off after the kid "discovered" Nirvana. Years later, he ran into another ghost who laughingly informed him that the kid had believed that he'd guided Ahmed to the "other side."

Ahmed lost his last ghostly companion a few decades before witnessing the last human breath. She was an older woman named Imani. He'd enjoyed her company. They talked for years about philosophy, food, and '90s music. But Imani didn't enjoy mini-golf.

One of the upsides of the ethereal life was instantaneous transportation. One of the downsides was that getting distracted for long periods was easy. Time seemed to go either very fast or absurdly slow, and there wasn't always rhyme or reason to it. Ahmed discovered a private mini-golf course in the basement of an Austrian castle. A wealthy prepper had purchased the historic fortification. He'd installed an underground city inside with one of the most amazing putt-putt courses ever constructed.

After playing the course for a few decades, Ahmed eventually stopped. By that point, he couldn't find Imani anywhere. Much like his own death, losing touch with humanity (even the ghostly kind) was anticlimactic.

It was chaos and then silence.

For the last few millennia, while the Earth wasn't totally silent, it mostly just "pulsed." Ahmed enjoyed the peace.

The 4,000th anniversary of the last human breath came and went. Shortly after, Ahmed realized something was happening in Siberia. Once again, it was hard to say how these things worked. All Ahmed knew was that something out of the ordinary was going on there.

The last time he'd felt anything like this, an Amazon river dolphin had briefly made its way onto land. Something about the creature's thoughts called to him. There'd been a moment of recognition when Ahmed materialized along the river bank. But the dolphin didn't seem to want to engage. It slipped back into the water moments later without a sound.

Had that dolphin seen him? Ahmed had wondered if this was some sort of accelerated evolution. As a result, he spent years reading about dolphins. He couldn't find real answers, though. The information was woefully outdated. It had been hundreds of years since anyone updated a textbook.

But the call to Siberia had been strong.

A metallic ship hung in the sky and undulated bizarrely. Ahmed read enough to recognize the shape as a "rotating hypercube." Three silvery creatures descended from it in a small, open-air, elliptical craft. Ahmed imagined this is what it was like watching the first European explorers arrive on South American shores.

The creatures had large, bulky bodies, with five long, spindly legs sprouting from their sides. They also had long necks with tiny heads. They looked like silver brontosauruses with spider legs.

Ahmed wondered if he should scare them off.

Was that his destiny? Was he left behind to protect Earth from alien invaders?

No, he thought, that's absurd. What was there to protect?

Ahmed decided to walk in their direction and not apparate in front of them.

Would they even be able to see him?

As they touched down in the snow-covered Siberian valley, it seemed like they could, in fact, see him. At least their bodies seemed oriented in his direction.

"Hello there!" one of them yelled in perfect English. Ahmed shook his head and said to himself, "Bable fish." At least they could see him.

"Hello?" Ahmed responded, wondering if they could even hear the voice he hadn't used in thousands of years.

"Please pardon us,” said the first silver-spider-brontosaurus. “We weren't certain there was still life here. We noted the widespread destruction. You do not appear mechanical. Have your people evolved to a non-corporeal state?"

"I don't think so," Ahmed said, worried that he might be a disappointment. "That's a thing in Sci-fi, right? Highly evolved non-corporeal beings? I'm pretty sure I'm just a ghost. Like I was a person long ago, but now I'm a spirit that's been left behind."

"No shit!" Said the second being. "We meet folks like you so rarely. Are there a lot of you here?"

"No," he hesitated, "No, I don't think so. I've been alone for a very long time."

"Sorry to hear that," said the third silvery beast. "If you don't mind, we were hoping to look around. Would you mind guiding us?"

"Oh yeah!" he said excitedly. He missed talking about things. Plus, when you witness an apocalypse, you see some crazy stuff. He had stories. He felt a bit of excitement. This might be one of this planet’s last human-centric tours.

"I'm not sure what your plans are," said Ahmed, "and I'm not sure how my existence works, but if you have room on your ship - after this, do you think I could hitch a ride?"