On the morning we emerged I remember a fan broke and our basement started to really bake. We were sweaty and crowded and getting anxious to crack the doors. Someone’s girlfreind was sullen in the corner, some fought, some gambled on what we’d find. Some gym-teacher-looking motherfucker was trying to quiet us but he couldn’t keep our attention over the outside screaming. It sounded as though there were some exuberant howls swirling around the surface. Upon our exit we noticed that Jocks were darting here and there about the new prairie, shirtless and with cargo shorts bleaching in the violent white sunrise. They were hoarsely and vigorously at the business of declaring victory. A smooth-chested one was holding an empty bottle like a club as he hugged me. We made eye contact as he let one go at top volume; swerving into falsetto. As his neck tightened and flexed, some blood rushed to his temples and then he wilted. He went doubled over for breath onto the next sap as if he were the youngest man alive. It was only about half of the campus males that had had this reaction, this becoming a new bullet of pale flesh; having un-torn hands and heads in the game. They were red eyed and shooting around us on the lawn, making us feel exhausted. These were children unwrapping a thousand-corpse Christmas present. The howlers trouped together as a nation, their amphetemal manifest not written but committed to the air in exuberant shrieks. Their constitution was fueled by probability, which was a purer fuel than faith, but did not seem to be burning away as quick. Aside from lighting up some cigarettes (i’m embarrassed to say, but even on the morning after, we called them silly things like “smokes”) the four of us were catatonic. “no more parents” one of us said sadly, as he watched a stocky and barefoot one scramble away from us awkwardly. I would have tried to laugh it off, but his face was far too grave.