Cicada: An Encounter

There was a cicada in my office yesterday. There was a twitchy switchy sound followed by a thud and then there it was: a fat bodied cigar butt looking thing with round orange eyes stuck on like little glued beads. It’s wing were long, graceful and iridescent and it stood perfectly still on the floor at the very edge of my desk. I looked at it, got closer, knelt by it and yelled across the hall to anyone listening: “I’ve got a cicada in here!” Remarkably, no one came running to see. I sat back down at my desk and decided that I was impressively good with nature. I took my phone out and took a picture of it. I was holding my breath on that first photo, fearing that it would launch into my face and blind me in one eye, leaving me with a really embarrassing story about how I lost my sight. Or maybe it would fly into my mouth and I would be forced to chew it like that show where they get paid to do stuff like that. I don’t get paid enough for that here. No sir. But then I remembered that the last time I took a picture of a cicada I was regretful that I hadn’t put something next to it to show it’s size. This time I took a blue pen out of my desk and carefully situated it next to the cicada, keeping it out of the insects personal space- like telling your friend to go stand near a celebrity without the celebrity knowing it. But it’s possible that not everyone would be able to truly understand the size just from a pen- there are lots of different pens of different sizes and weights. So I tried a ruler. That way everyone would see. And you know what? It actually wasn’t all that big. And you know what? Who is everyone? Who is everyone that is going to see a picture of my cicada? Who is everyone that I needed to take seven pictures of this cicada in the middle of my work day. I moved pictures of my friend’s baby to make room for the pictures of the cicada. I just wanted pictures of it- decent pictures that showed the size of the thing. Where is this determination in other parts of my life? Where?

I sat back down and the twitchy itchy swishy started again and it had moved to a hanging file box. It made me shudder a little- how uncomfortably it moved- like it had its legs on loan before the real ones came in. It flew a little and landed on its side, bumbly-like. I couldn’t take it, the science fiction malfunction of it, the crunchy but meaty flicker of it. “Solana!” I called to my coworker, “Help me out wouldja?” and together we walked the hanging file folder out the door, where I used a stick to suggest the cicadas release. He held on tight but I think he’ll be more content among the woodchips.
(I’ll try to post one of the pictures.)