The bench at Cerro Tololo, the silence between us

I'm sitting on a cold metal bench at Cerro Tololo, night coming on, and the stranger next to me hasn't said a word in three hours. Neither have I. We're just watching the sky go from purple to black, waiting for something dim to crawl over the horizon. I keep thinking about how we'll never know what the other one was listening for, and how that's okay.