SHADOWS of sleep solidified into recognizable objects: ceiling fan, nightstand, bookshelf. My husband’s arm lay heavy across my shoulder and chest. His breath brushed my neck. I pulled his arm tighter around me, while cicadas sang torch songs outside our bedroom window.
FOR a week in late April 2015, the Kansan brood of Magicicada septemdecim tunnel to the earth’s surface. In a choreographed invasion that stirs the twilight throughout Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa, the periodical cicadas steal toward the nearest vertical surfaces, to which they cling overnight. They shed exoskeletons in the midday heat. After the adults fly into the treetops on brand new lacy wings, their discarded shells stick to tree trunks, light posts, mailboxes, headstones.
Winged adult cicadas dry in the sun for a day, and then sing to attract females. When flexed, tymbals––drum-like organs buried inside hollow abdomens––release a mating cacophony across the countryside and over suburban neighborhoods. Tymbals, a word reminiscent of crashing cymbals. Appropriate, because Magicicadas chorus at eighty-five decibels, as loud as a blender. Awakened to the single purpose of reproduction, males rarely even stop to eat. They collaborate as well as any orchestra; individual soloists alternate their serenades with short flights to search out receptive females. After cutting slits into tree twigs, each female deposits up to 400 eggs.
Their physical energy spent, their bodies starved, both males and females die. The corpses of Magicicada Brood IV carpet the ground.
THE ceiling fan blades rotated light and dark stripes above me. I nudged the pillow into a more comfortable position, coaxing the memory foam to remember a new shape for my head. Ben’s stomach pressed into my back. His midsection supported me. Lying next to him, I was relieved of the anxiety caused by navigating the world as an independent organism.
I wasn’t supposed to crave support.
I had been raised during the Ms. Magazine era. Run your own company. Change your own spark plugs. Show no hint of dependence. Ms. daughters would take care of ourselves, thank you very much. Ms. daughters were trained to fly solo.
TO achieve the penultimate goal of the species––reproduction––Magicicadas employ a two-pronged survival strategy.
First prong: predator satiation—a million and a half cicadas per acre of land sates the most voracious appetites. And appetites wait in abundance to be sated. Dogs and cats gorge until indigestible wings block their livers. Starlings feast, grow bloated, and cannot fly. Cicadas are high-protein food for hawks, deer, and squirrels; turtles and fish; raccoons and possums; lizards, snakes, and mice; spiders, ants, and wasps. Even humans consider cicadas a delicacy. But the sacrifice of many increases survival odds for the individual.
Second prong: out-of-sync life cycle. No bird or beast of prey can limit its diet to a food source available only once every seventeen years. Any predator with a one-year lifespan crosses paths with cicadas once every seventeen generations. Thus the cicada is not essential for the existence of any single species.
I TRACKED a single blade of the ceiling fan as it orbited the motor, ruffling air across my ankles. The bed frame creaked as I twisted halfway onto my back, head in the crook of Ben’s arm, my side pressed against his stomach. His heart thumped a lullaby that eased my spine into the mattress.
AFTER ten weeks, instinct pulls newly hatched nymphs to the edge of host branches and then drops them to the earth, where they tunnel underground, plowing through cool damp soil. As many as fifty share a hole a mere twelve inches in diameter, feeding on the sap stored in tree roots. Cicada nymphs specialize in a particular variety of sap that flows upward instead of downward. Because they work against gravity, their jaws are stronger than their size would suggest, heads forward of their bodies. They are bred for sucking.
During their seventeen-year growth cycle, they will venture only a few feet in any direction; they are completely nourished within the bulls-eye where instinct dropped them.
THE ceiling fan receded into shadow as late afternoon dimmed our east-facing bedroom to a half-light. Bunched under my knees, the sheets were scratchy, a brand I’d bought on sale. I lay on my back, pressing tight against Ben, and in his sleep, his arms encircled me. The heat that radiated from his skin warmed mine. A faint scent of shampoo enticed me to stroke his baby-fine hair. My stomach rumbled, but I felt no need to obey its demand. I was nourished lying next to my husband, in the bed where instinct had drawn me.
FOR a week in late April 2015, the Kansan brood of Magicicada septemdecim tunnel to the earth’s surface. In a choreographed invasion that stirs the twilight throughout Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, and Iowa, the periodical cicadas steal toward the nearest vertical surfaces, to which they cling overnight. They shed exoskeletons in the midday heat. After the adults fly into the treetops on brand new lacy wings, their discarded shells stick to tree trunks, light posts, mailboxes, headstones.
Winged adult cicadas dry in the sun for a day, and then sing to attract females. When flexed, tymbals––drum-like organs buried inside hollow abdomens––release a mating cacophony across the countryside and over suburban neighborhoods. Tymbals, a word reminiscent of crashing cymbals. Appropriate, because Magicicadas chorus at eighty-five decibels, as loud as a blender. Awakened to the single purpose of reproduction, males rarely even stop to eat. They collaborate as well as any orchestra; individual soloists alternate their serenades with short flights to search out receptive females. After cutting slits into tree twigs, each female deposits up to 400 eggs.
Their physical energy spent, their bodies starved, both males and females die. The corpses of Magicicada Brood IV carpet the ground.
THE ceiling fan blades rotated light and dark stripes above me. I nudged the pillow into a more comfortable position, coaxing the memory foam to remember a new shape for my head. Ben’s stomach pressed into my back. His midsection supported me. Lying next to him, I was relieved of the anxiety caused by navigating the world as an independent organism.
I wasn’t supposed to crave support.
I had been raised during the Ms. Magazine era. Run your own company. Change your own spark plugs. Show no hint of dependence. Ms. daughters would take care of ourselves, thank you very much. Ms. daughters were trained to fly solo.
TO achieve the penultimate goal of the species––reproduction––Magicicadas employ a two-pronged survival strategy.
First prong: predator satiation—a million and a half cicadas per acre of land sates the most voracious appetites. And appetites wait in abundance to be sated. Dogs and cats gorge until indigestible wings block their livers. Starlings feast, grow bloated, and cannot fly. Cicadas are high-protein food for hawks, deer, and squirrels; turtles and fish; raccoons and possums; lizards, snakes, and mice; spiders, ants, and wasps. Even humans consider cicadas a delicacy. But the sacrifice of many increases survival odds for the individual.
Second prong: out-of-sync life cycle. No bird or beast of prey can limit its diet to a food source available only once every seventeen years. Any predator with a one-year lifespan crosses paths with cicadas once every seventeen generations. Thus the cicada is not essential for the existence of any single species.
I TRACKED a single blade of the ceiling fan as it orbited the motor, ruffling air across my ankles. The bed frame creaked as I twisted halfway onto my back, head in the crook of Ben’s arm, my side pressed against his stomach. His heart thumped a lullaby that eased my spine into the mattress.
AFTER ten weeks, instinct pulls newly hatched nymphs to the edge of host branches and then drops them to the earth, where they tunnel underground, plowing through cool damp soil. As many as fifty share a hole a mere twelve inches in diameter, feeding on the sap stored in tree roots. Cicada nymphs specialize in a particular variety of sap that flows upward instead of downward. Because they work against gravity, their jaws are stronger than their size would suggest, heads forward of their bodies. They are bred for sucking.
During their seventeen-year growth cycle, they will venture only a few feet in any direction; they are completely nourished within the bulls-eye where instinct dropped them.
THE ceiling fan receded into shadow as late afternoon dimmed our east-facing bedroom to a half-light. Bunched under my knees, the sheets were scratchy, a brand I’d bought on sale. I lay on my back, pressing tight against Ben, and in his sleep, his arms encircled me. The heat that radiated from his skin warmed mine. A faint scent of shampoo enticed me to stroke his baby-fine hair. My stomach rumbled, but I felt no need to obey its demand. I was nourished lying next to my husband, in the bed where instinct had drawn me.
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