Cicadas

I could run the one block home at night from my friend Elissa’s house to mine in about 2 seconds flat. It had nothing to with superhuman Apollo-like skill or the fact that I was running downhill at a 45 degree incline.

It had everything to do with fear.

I was scared out of my mind. I was desperately afraid that the gyspy moths that I could hear munching away at the leaves in the trees might fall on my head.

Because like most people, I am not a big fan of insects.

And here we are once again--on the blink of another episode of pestilence. This time it is not creepy leaf masticating caterpillars consuming from above. This time it is cicadas—giant slow flying dive bombing blind eyed creatures of disgust. Creatures that crash into my family room windows at night leaving carcasses for me to find on the patio in the morning. Giant buzzing green beetle things that rise from the earth like zombies every 7 years driving all humans from their backyards.

I hate them.

Even more than a cockroach or a wood spider.

And there is not a single thing that I can do about it.

And so I have no recourse but to sweep the lifeless and sometimes semi-lifeless shells away in the morning and wish for more birds of prey to tear the insects’ flesh apart--and hope that the dog doesn’t eat or play with them, and that Fall comes early this year.