A high-pitched chattering buzz progresses from a series of
wavelike crescendos to a constant ear-splitting drone during June of 1956. The
seventeen-year cicada has emerged and announced itself in a competitive
orchestral shouting match in the trees overhead. It is the summer before my
second birthday. I am unaware of the noise or have tuned it out. I do not
remember the event.
1973
I walk home from class at the end of my freshman year of
college. The sidewalks are littered with the crisp remains of millions of
red-eyed cicadas. I cannot avoid stepping on them, with the accompanying
spine-tingling crunch. They fly from tree to tree and from tree to ground,
increasing in number as the days warm and lengthen. I am nineteen and aware of
the interesting nature of this outbreak. I save one expired bug in a
cotton-filled display box and label it with the year.
1990
It is my son’s second summer. It occurs to me that his life
is on the same cycle as mine relative to a clock that ticks in seventeen-year
increments. He will be nineteen and in college the next time the cicadas swarm.
For now, my wife and I watch together out a second-floor window and record the event on videotape. A second fragile bug is added
to the display box and labeled 1990. I decide to add another one to the collection
if I can remember to do so, in the unimaginably futuristic year of 2007. I am
thirty-six years old.
2007
This year’s emergence has become a much-anticipated family
event, mostly because I’ve been telling them about it for several years. The
media has whipped up a frenzy of coverage, resulting in numerous conversations
among adults and children of all ages. My daughter conquers her fear of insects
and becomes a semi-celebrity among the younger children on our street. Cicadas
have become an ingredient in a variety of recipes. I collect several bugs
in various stages of development, mounting them in a new and improved display case
alongside two generations of ancestors. I label the box and hang it on the
wall. I am fifty-two. I videotape the larval stage of the emergence and edit
the footage on my computer. (see my video posted below.) I try not to think
about the next time I will greet these creatures, and that it will most likely
be my last.
2024
2024
So much happens in seventeen years. Marriages, grandchildren, and a move to Florida, where despite eternal summer weather, there are no fireflies or seventeen-year cicadas. We miss the Midwest, the seasons, and even a little bit of winter. A return to Central Illinois precedes the next emergence, but will it extend to the middle of the Land of Lincoln? As June approaches, a trip is planned to glimpse, if even for a little while, the frenzy of the bugs. It feels like home.
Emergence Video
Emergence Video
