Year of the Returning Cicada
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/03/09/cicadas-broodx-environment/ Brood X, the last time they appeared in hordes was in 2004. In a few months these monstrous looking bugs will burrow out of their 17-year hiatus and attach themselves to Everything. They will be everywhere, leaving exoskeletons and nesting in trees. If you miss seeing them—don’t worry—you will hear them as the average male mating song can reach 100 decibels, on par with living with a leaf blower. I mention all this as the 17-year cicada makes an appearance in my book Cloud of Witnesses. Roland comes out of his family’s trailer to find his bicycle covered with winged locusts, big-eyed bugs. Later Granny will fry some up to eat in her black-iron skillet. “Tastes like bacon,” she’ll inform Roland. I pulled my bike out of the rack in front of the school and shook half a dozen cicadas off the seat. They had begun to hatch earlier in the week, googly red-eyed insects the size of...