As I sat in a friend's backyard one night, I noticed a few blades of grass moving nearby. Taking a closer look, I discovered that it was a large cicada crawling up out of the ground. It was slowly stretching its legs and beginning to move above ground for the first time after spending many years underground. Its front legs flailed around clumsily as it tried to grasp the next blade of grass to continue its ascent upward. For a harmless bug, they sure are evil, primordial-looking things.
Some movement in the grass a foot away caught my eye and I saw a second cicada begin climbing up out of the ground. What are the odds of seeing two of them coming up out of the ground at the same time like that?! I sat back down on the lawn chair and then noticed that there was all kinds of movement throughout the yard. I started looking around and that's when I realized that the entire yard was dotted by an army of cicadas all coming up out of the ground at once! They didn't make a sound, but continued to slowly and purposefully crawl upwards, intent on reaching a destination that had taken them years of preparation.
I moved my foot and noticed one scrabbling up from the ground next to my shoe. They were everywhere! They were like hordes of prehistoric creatures that had finally begun their invasion; their vacant, staring eyes looking skyward as they crept along.
I got up and took off out of that yard. Not that I was scared of a bunch of harmless bugs, I just had better things to do. Their malevolent, staring gaze burning in my mind. I mean, what can a little bug do to a person? Swarms of them descending. They probably don't even know I'm there. Thousands of tiny, razor-sharp mandibles greedily tearing into flesh. It's not like they care about people anyway, they're just trying to reach the trees. The whir of wings. Blinding pain and screams of agony. If I leave them alone, they'll leave me alone. A silent yard littered with carcasses picked clean by the swarms. The metallic scent of blood in the air.
OK, now that's just ridiculous. But you have to admit they are creepy-looking. To me, they always signal the beginning of the end of summer. They remind me that summer won't last forever and I better make the most of it.
