A parrot explains the Fermi Paradox.
Less a story than a meditation and thought experiment, this piece raises many more questions than it answers: why do we search for intelligent life in the stars, when we are surrounded by it here on earth? Is the silence a result of muteness, of shyness, or of our own deafness? Can we recognize intelligence only if it speaks to us in our own language, and is that perhaps a sign of our own lack of intelligence?