<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 18px/normal Helvetica; ">There Is No One But Us</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; min-height: 19px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3"><br></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3">There is no one but us.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3">There is no one to send,</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3">nor a clean hand nor a pure heart</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3">on the face of the earth,</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3">but only us,</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3">a generation comforting ourselves</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3">with the notion that we have come at an awkward time,</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3">that our innocent fathers are all dead</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3">- as if innocence had ever been -</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3">and our children busy and troubled,</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3">and we ourselves unfit, not yet ready,</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3">having each of us chosen wrongly,</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3">made a false start, failed,</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3">yielded to impulse and the tangled comfort of pleasures,</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3">and grown exhausted, unable to seek the thread, weak, and involved.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3">But there is no one but us.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3">There never has been.</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; min-height: 19px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3"><br></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Helvetica" size="3"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Annie Dillard</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; min-height: 19px; "><br></div></body></html>