In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

means it's a week before finals, and we spend our days on the grass in front of the girls' dorm. By we I mean the entire school, two-hundred sixteen-to-eighteen-year- olds spread beneath the heat of a Mississippi May.

The couples have blankets to themselves and work steadily at getting us all a Reputation among passing college students. Most of us, though, gather in clots to laugh and talk and read and nap. It's against the rules to be outside without shoes, and the grass is filled with stickers, but we kick off our sandals anyway.

I brought out my books, swearing I'd do homework, but instead I use my bookbag as pillow. Sam plays music off her laptop, Leslie shoots video for her vlog, and I have class in an hour. But maybe, by then, we'll have evaporated and become part of the air.

Someday we will die and our ashes will fly from that aeroplane over the sea. But for now we are young; let us lay in the sun and count every beautiful thing we can see. - Neutral Milk Hotel, "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea"