It is the human that is the alien/The human that has no cousin on the moon
We did a lot of shouting--phrases from childhood games, dirty words, satisfying noises of all kinds. We were afraid, but only a little afraid, of the silence around us. Usually there was enough breeze in the tops of the pines to make a faint rustling noise behind the day, but I remember times, hot, airless days, sitting in the woods, alone in perfect silence, paralysis creeping over my limbs, my ears deaf without sound to hear, my eyes frozen without movement to watch. We shouted in joy and fear, sending our voices ahead to animate the bleakness, supremely conscious of ourselves as pinpoints of life in a world of dead things, impurities that sand, coral, water, and dead mules were only tolerating.
Frank Conroy's Stop-Time is beautiful and sad and funny.
Sophomore year retrospective (with pictures!) coming soon.