I Hope.
I almost don’t want to write this particular blog post.
For one thing, I know my limited readership is tired of hearing about cicadas. But more importantly, someday I intend to go back and read these posts and I don’t want to be reminded of this.
The cicadas are almost gone now. When I see one now, I am happy – excited, even – to find one that’s moving, still thriving. The once gigantic buzz-roar has dulled to a minimal hum behind the chirping birds. For me, it’s sad that they are gone so quickly.
But on a recent walk, I looked down and saw what I assumed to be a millionth dead cicada. Its left wing was mangled and most of its body was missing. In fact, only part of its head was intact – both eyes, but very little below that. And it had only three legs – two on one side, one on the other – instead of the usual six.
And it was crawling.
In spite of it having no body at all, and in spite of its obviously imminent demise, it was moving. It didn’t look like it wanted to die.
Both Dylan and Shane have an affinity for horror movies, so I have watched more than my share in the past several years. In horror movies, sometimes the villain – or the victim – won’t go down without a fight. Perhaps they’ve been mercilessly knifed a few dozen times with an ice pick, but somehow they are able to pull themselves up with only their arms and drag their bloody bodies across the floor. In the movies, it’s quite literally horrifying – hence the genre name.
In real life, I doubt it happens very often that someone so close to death somehow pulls themselves to safety and/or kills their attacker, ending up saved by an ambulance in just the knick of time.
But I once saw a squirrel lying on the side of the road, not-quite-dead but not able to move. The squirrel was surrounded by ravens who were ready to pick its bones clean while it was still alive, and the squirrel was screaming. It was real-life horror and I had to decide, quickly, to put that squirrel out of its misery with my car. It wasn’t something I wanted to do, but I didn’t believe I had a choice. The ravens weren’t going to go away, and dying that way seemed incredibly inhumane.
So when I saw the cicada crawling to nowhere, I wanted to cry. I couldn’t imagine that there wasn’t a bird nearby that wouldn’t put it out of its misery – but I didn’t see one. And I didn’t think crushing it – in spite of the evidence to the contrary – was the right thing to do.
So I picked it up and put it quietly in the grass, to die in peace. I hope.
I don’t know if I did the right thing. I don’t know the right thing. For so much of this time with the cicadas, I’ve felt like I was floundering and alone because “they’re just bugs” and so few people think like me. I didn’t expect to spend a month saving the little creatures, and I didn’t expect to be so saddened by watching so many die, even though I knew what their very short life cycle entails.
I think if I didn’t equate them with humans – with me, and with life itself – I might not be so crazed with loss. But honestly, I can’t see it, or them, or us, any other way.