The Camera
In the year 2525
A shot from Will Oechsler just now gave me the impetus for a very short, short story:
In the year 2525, an alien explorer ship from the planet Oechlandia Major landed on a barren planet of ice. They were restocking their pantry (they use ice for fuel and food - breaking it into oxygen which they breathe and hydrogen which they eat) when one of the beings stepped around a rock to relieve himself and spotted a strange object that looked almost like an intelligent life form had once inhabited the planet.
He brought it in to the Captain, who immediately dismissed the find as a fake. "First of all, our records show there was never any intelligent life of this planet."
(He may have been right about that one.)
"And second of all, it is clear to any intelligent being that this camera-like object simply was formed by natural combinations of silica, metals and time.
The Admiral ordered that the object be destroyed immediately.
Later that day he privately told his psychiatrist that he knew something so complex as a camera could never have assembled itself, but by admitting that there was an intelligent creator for such an intelligent design would have endangered his position among his peers.