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I'm in.
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Oct 30, 2013 02:58
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 00:17 |
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poo poo, I thought it was CST.  Well, I'll try anyways: Ballad of the Cicadas 616 words Emerson watched as the cicadas swarmed above him. He was lying on the cool grass, enjoying the little black bodies cover the trees and ground around him, simply taking in the sights and the sounds. The music of the cicadas was remarkable. They were playing their merry tune and going about their business, never mind that they were so close to death. Nothing seemed to bother them. The birds that were having a field day with the easy pickings, the frogs in a nearby pond whose tongues were going every which way, the grim reaper with the hourglass – this was their moment to shine, once every seventeen years, and they were going to play their music no matter what. Emerson wanted to tell the world this; however, his world was destroyed and forgotten. Five days earlier, he was looking forward to this swarm. He really loved bugs, especially ones that made sounds. Crickets were a personal favorite, their chirping lulling him to a content sleep every night. He had never seen cicadas, however. He was only five, and he knew from all his books that cicadas only appear once every seventeen years. Why did he like nature’s symphony so much? He really didn’t know. His mother was an entomologist and loved to show him various bugs, and he enjoyed listening to the drones of the bees and the high-pitched buzz of the mosquito. All of these sounds were remarkable to him. Then his mother had to go away. All he heard was something about “front-line duty.” She had been gone for three years. Then it happened. He did not know much about the war the United States was in, nor the politics behind it, or the destruction it had caused, but when the bomb siren went off during his music class as his teacher tried to get the class to sing along to dumb old Kumbaya, he knew something very wrong was happening. Remembering the bomb drills, he hid under his desk and, with the rest of the students, listened to the dull drone of planes flying over. The school was hit first. Emerson covered his face in terror as the classroom around him simply fell apart. The ceiling collapsed all over the desks, killing everyone but him. The rest of the building similarly turned to rubble. He didn’t even hear the full blast, just an initial boom. What had just happened? Emerson got up, and watched as the world around him turned to dust. The black bodies of the enemy planes simply flew about above him, and explosions continued to rock the very earth, though he could only feel it. He watched as building after building turned to rubble, watched as the small town he once knew turned to dust. He didn’t know why the planes were so intent on ruining his town. He didn’t get who the enemy was, really. They were something faceless and vague, much like the mysterious cicadas. He fled to the forest, lucky not to get hit by a bomb. It was his fifth day without food, and he was near death. Perhaps, by the time the cicadas all died, he would join them. And while he enjoyed seeing some friendlier shiny black bodies, he certainly couldn’t hear them. The bombs took good care of that. But he could hear them. It sounded like his mother, calling him home. Time passed. The music was dying; he couldn’t hear this, but he knew it. He had read once that the cicadas die after three days, but a whole new generation would re-emerge after seventeen years. The thought comforted him, and he went to sleep, as the last of the cicadas fell.
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Nov 4, 2013 06:07
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I wish to get burned again, and I will take a flash rule.
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Nov 5, 2013 09:21
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e: nvm
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Nov 16, 2013 05:09
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