Have you seen a cicada yet? Okay, fine. How many? One? Two? Ten, tops? Were they in Madison? I know a lot of people were nervous about a swarm of pests that would be large enough to block the sun. I know some people were worried they would turn day to night. I was a little bit nervous too, but am now greatly disappointed. How many cicadas have I seen? One. How many live cicadas have I seen? Zero. After seventeen years of anticipation, the cicada apocalypse has proven itself little more than one grand aplopalypse.
Right. Seventeen years. That’s a lifetime for some of us. Half a lifetime for others. Nearly two decades. What a time to wait. I wonder what happened. Word of mouth suggests that our neighbors in Summit got plenty of summer guests. Sidewalks were covered, trees were coated with another layer of bark, the persistent ring of mating cicadas allotted little time for rest. I don’t think I would have loved living with them for too long, but just a single night of that could have made for some wonderful poetry.
A Vignette for The Only
I was walking by the Kirby center on a blistering school morning. I heard a bird chirp, and then something hit the sidewalk beside me. Was the sky falling? I bent to examine what it was. There, to my right, a little, green bug with long wings folded back and vivid orange eyes lay paralyzed. This is the end, my friend, he seemed to whisper. Cicadapocalypse dusk has dawned. For the sake of auld lang syne, I nodded to the cicada and he was no more.