The Bugs are Coming

I remember seventeen years ago when the cicadas came the last time around here. It was like some kind of horror movie with tiny multi-legged zombies crawling out of the ground. Rather than brains on their mind these little bugs only have nookie on the brain and they go about it with a very singular purpose, heading for the nearest tall object which is usually a tree.

The life of a cicada is a rather interesting one. Here's what I understand about it. They lay buried in the ground for seventeen years. Some of them hatch earlier than that and you can hear those buzzing around ever summer. However, most of them come out en-mass every seventeen years. They come up looking like little brown things crawling out of the dirt and their instinct is to climb up that object, normally a tree, and they start to change. At some point they turn into this hideous looking white things with red marks on their backs and fledgling wins. Eventually they turn into this dark black things with giant red eyes and membranous wings. This is when they start making the biggest racket you are likely to hear. All of that racket is to officially announce they are ready to party. Then the males hook up with females, and the females live long enough to lay eggs, which then fall to the ground and get buried and then the ones above the ground die and it all starts over again in seventeen years.

How interesting a life that must be when your singular purpose is just to get laid and then die. Of course I know one or two males of the human species who seem to believe that is their sole purpose but at least they don't have hideous red eyes and membranous wings. Some of them will make quite a racket, especially if you get them drunk.

It is that time again here in Chicago. Once again it is all over the news as if this is some truly great and amazing thing or as if they might be dangerous. The news people love to hype things and I am surprised they have yet to work some kind of scary story into the whole cicada thing. Although I recently heard that people who have been planning their weddings for the better part of the year and had been planning to have an outdoor wedding during the exact time the bugs are likely to be the loudest are starting to scramble and try to make other plans. I have heard audio of these things and remember how loud they can get and it would be rather humorous for the pastor or priest to be screaming over the sound of the hideous insects and as they fly into the faces of the bridesmaids and cling to their expensive and hideous dresses.

What I remember from the last time they came crawling out of the ground was that lots of media outlets had people on who talked about how cicadas were good to eat. Yes, there were chefs with various recipes and cicada-eating contests all over the place. Supposedly they are rather nutritious and taste like potatoes. Yes, I have heard they taste like potatoes. The key, say the cicada eaters, is to get them right after they come climbing out of the ground and look all brown and shiny. You can then batter them and fry them up and pop them in your mouth and they taste like multi-legged potatoes I guess.

I, personally, do not wish to eat any cicadas. I prefer to leave them alone. I remember the last time they came out watching a large german shepherd walking around eating these things as they came out of the ground like popcorn. I also remember them crawling up the legs of my jeans. There was nothing like looking across a street at night and seeing hundreds, maybe thousands, of tiny multi-legged creatures slowly crossing the road. Of course you could just wait for a car to come down the street and hear the crunch, crunch, crunch of the car crushing the little brown bodies.

I also remember there being a bit of an outbreak of these things during the time I was living in St. Louis. Once again people started talking about eating the things and how rather hideous they look. They do look rather ugly. They kind of look like locusts only they are black with big, bulbous red eyes. The worst part, as I recall, is when they first come up out of the ground. There's nothing quite like looking at a lawn pulsing and bulging like it's breathing and then tiny little legs kicking and twitching out of the ground. Then these nasty-looking little brown things come crawling up and start marching like an army toward a tree. Then the trees, for a time, have little bulges all over the place as the things make their way up the tree. Then you get all of the husks as the cicadas shed their skins and change and grow.

At some point they end up in the top of the trees and make all of their noise and then they pretty much leave the rest of us on the ground alone. We are just left with the husks and the remains of the squashed bugs and all of the ones that people ate along the way. People eventually move on to other things and forget about all of the bugs lying around and promptly forget all about them for the next seventeen years.

It's kind of sad in a way when you think about the life of the cicada. All they care about is living long enough to have sex and then they die. They really serve no other purpose. It's not like they eat some other kind of pest. They don't do much more than climb out of the ground and lay eggs. How sad. There must be a lot of these things that get lost every years as people dig up the ground or cut down trees. Imagine crawling out of the ground after seventeen years and finding the tree where you were supposed to climb gone. Suddenly you have to trudge across the street and avoid cars or german shepherds.

I don't know what could be learned from the life of the cicada. Maybe there is something to be said about having a singular purpose in life. Maybe there is something to be said for the fact that life is short and it pays to have fun and party when you can. I know a few people who are apparently taking that second idea to heart and partying well into their thirties and further. On the other hand, maybe there isn't anything to learn from a life focused entirely on mating and nothing else.

Nature is a strange thing, that's for sure. Wouldn't it be nice to ask God or Mother Nature or whomever and ask them exactly what the point of the cicada was? Maybe it was created just so morning radio shows can have cicada eating contests every seventeen years. Then you look at the zebra and realize it cannot be ridden and does not make a good pack animal and that it exists only for food and you have to wonder again. As someone once said, why did God make the giraffe's neck so long? Well, to eat the leaves off the top of the trees. Well, why not just make the trees shorter?

If you plan on being in the Chicago area at the end of May and the beginning of June be sure to be prepared. If you are in an area with a lot of trees you should be prepared to see a lot of insects crawling all over everything. Unlike New York City these are not cockroaches. These are little party animals known as cicadas. Much like you were, or perhaps still are, they are just looking for a little sack time with an attractive cicada of the opposite sex and then die. If you happen to come here in early June you will probably notice this horrendous buzzing and whirring noise coming from the trees. That's just the very same bugs up there having their little party and perhaps buying each other drinks or whatever at whatever cicada bars may have opened up in the past few weeks.

If you are planning your wedding and you want to blend in you had better have dresses and clothing covered with little dark spots with bright red eyes in order to blend in completely. There are a lot of places that will let you have your wedding and reception in doors. I always thought the having your wedding outdoors was a rather foolish thing to do anyway, but that's just me. I'll be over here eating a box of cicadas.

Bryan W. Alaspa's novel Dust is available in print and eBook format at his website www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.