Picture me, driving along my rural highway toward home, windows down, June jabbering happily from her car seat. The spring air smells of honeysuckle and freshly cut grass.
A loud, high pitched whirring sound becomes audible over the din of the engine…a strong, omnipotent whine that is actually louder than the engine of my Passat going 45 miles per hour.
It’s the cicadas, millions and millions of male cicadas, madly vibrating from trees, fence posts and telephone polls lusting for amorous attention from their lady counterparts.
The road bends and the sound recedes, indicating an exit from the whistling pocket of enchantment. We drive on and that sound, that crazy noise envelopes our car again, and eventually fades. Why cicadas choose one pocket of trees over another, I don’t know.
When we eventually pull into our driveway, I can’t resist scanning my vocabulary, trying to come up with a word, a phrase, an analogy that accurately describes what it’s like to experience this otherworldly noise.
June and I get out of the car to a deafening roar. The very air is under seige. A description comes to me.
Standing in the vortex of mating cicadas is like what you’d hear if you looked up and saw a giant, terrible alien spaceship hovering over your house preparing to take you home against your will: it’s spooky and terrifying.
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
love your writing
Wait until you pull in your driveway and one pops in your open window and lands screaming at your feet. Like a brown big toe at full volume. Thank goodness I was coming to a stop, I bailed out pronto.
We had those blasted things last year and they do sound exactly like an alien invasion. Look like it, too. In fact, really, they are kind of otherworldly…hmm.
The first time I heard them I thought they sounded like space ship in a 50′s horror movie. I live in the woods and sometimes if I have my doors open (screens closed!!!) you have to turn up the T.V./radio because the cicadas are soooo loud.
They’re really bad at our house. If I’m outside for more than five minutes, I actually feel like I’m hallucinating.
Ha ha! Another apt description! The sound is quasi-psychedelic.
We had them every summer growing up in Iowa and I always found the sound a reminder of home. THEN, the plague came here and I understood all the fuss. Besides being hugely ugly, the buzz is truly annoying! The alien spaceship is a good description!
For a true Bodysnatcher experience, take the shells of the cicadas and attach the to your clothes. Go for maximum coverage. My brother used to do this, and for some reason we thought it was a riot.
Holy Crap! Just finished your book (loved it!) but damn how do you look anyone in your town in the eye? Bible club ladies! Sexy horsey women! Potluck mommies! You are one BRAVE chickadee!
Em, I don’t look anyone in the eye because I rarely venture out of my house anymore for reasons you describe. Ha!
I’ve been sharing your Cicada posts with my brother who lives in Maryland. He gets them yearly plus the every 17 year variety. He stated that the yearly ones are louder. He liked and agreed with your description, “… alien spaceship hovering over your house…”
Ok. If you post another picture of bugs I’m going to have to stop reading your blog. Just sayin. I know. I’m a wuss.
C’mon, they’re not that bad, are they?
For some reason I think of a baby with a three-pack-a-day habit crying when I hear cicadas. Weird, no?
Ha ha ha ha!
I hate those things. They are so LOUD and UGLY!
When I moved into my apt here in Texas after coming from California, I thought we had a bug invasion of the freakiest kind! I called maintenance and when they came out and realized what I was weirding out over they pointed out that those were just the husks, and the real deals were much more ugly. (then pointed one out to me). I about died.
Listening to them at night from the comfort of my bed though, it’s not so bad. They are like really loud crickets on steroids. And that I can handle.
i’m betting that the chickens think they are cheesecake … ?