Cicadas are insects that hatch and live underground for the majority of their lives, and emerge only to mate. They are as innocuous as they are loud. From high up the tree barks, the males produce the sound by periodically flexing instruments called tymbals located in the abdomen. Shortly upon finding a mate and breeding, they die.
By the time I noticed there was something different about the sound of Cicadas, I had already heard their call many times before. It wasn’t until I stumbled into one of their choir earlier this summer, while idling in a Torontonian park in defiance of Covid, that it dawned on me their call resembled other noteworthy sounds, like the theme song to Interstellar, or the chanting of Tibetan monks. It started to fit the Cicadian Song evoked an out-of-this-world feeling. The story that follows is inspired by—and therefore dedicated to—that choir of Cicadas.
Like our music, their music developed in stages. Mihād didn’t know it at the time, but an ensemble of Cicadas was behind the thrumming. Wandering alone along a muddied country trail during recess one overcast morning, he hadn’t planned on hearing their song, especially here of all places, at the tail end of a silent retreat. “It’s the most thrilling thing and the most terrifying thing,” he would later extol in reverent tones to confused companions. “It’s a mating call,” confused companions would mutter in irreverent jest.
By the time Mihād stumbled into The Song, the introduction was already well under way. The Song drew in the listener, eased him in, and the Singer knew there was no other way. Had the hum not emanated from up above, from that perforated canopy of sugar maple birch leaves yet to succumb to autumn, Mihād would’ve surely mistaken it for the distant drone of a combine harvesting wheat from adjoining farmlands. Gently the tune withdrew him from mental minutiae into a foreign frequency.
Now the leader of the band of Cicada, satisfied with such attentive audience, shifted into dynamic pre-chorus, and the gang joined on cue. Together they amplified what the intro began, and steadily the tone ascended—rising and rising, all the while gathering intensity. Up, up, up it went, not in the linear directness of bottom to up, but rather in a spiralling transition reminiscent of swirling dervishes.
What had begun as a soft serenade now erupted into full-blown crescendo. Each climb in decibel wrought positive havoc on Mihād’s senses. By the time he realized he had embarked a rollercoaster, the ride had already crossed the summit of no return.
So far from the commotion of commerce, the choir couldn’t have hoped for better ambiance. The Cicadian chorus shook Mihād. He felt struck like a tuning fork. Up until a few moments ago, Mihād’s eyes had delivered unwavering reports of mud-road, birch canopy and cloud cover. Now they were dancing to the tune of Cicadian vibrato. Each resounding wave that crashed into him extracted him further from his reverie and flung him into him. His surroundings closed on him from all directions. Mihād couldn’t have lost his senses even if he wanted to.
An overwhelming surge of energy announced that something ominous was approaching, like the rising dust around Carthage must have announced the marching Romans. This emphatic Cicadian rhythm falling from the trees may as well be falling from the heavens. Mihād sought closeness to the earth, and like a waterfall to the head the song brought him to the knees.
He didn’t realize it at the time, but the Cicadas’ Song did not flow in continuous timbre. Instead it weaved in and out of crescendo, ebbing and flowing to maintain the potency within its chorus, first administered by this Cicada, then that, each one stepping up round-robin to bathe him with musical waterfall.
Don’t fight. The peaks of Cicadian vibration beat every cell of Mihād’s existence into submission, and the punctuating crests offered momentary respite. He wasn’t victim to the unconsciousness of trance, or the insensibility of stupor. On the contrary, Mihād was too conscious. Tremendously aware.
All thought drowned. The envoloping vacuum made available every flicker of leaf, every syllable of wind and every particle of dew. Panting, eyes agape and mouth ajar, is how Mihād received the flood of sensations. Seconds melted into hours. Here opened into there. Mihād could no longer tell soaring from sinking.
He thought his head might explode. His heart was pounding in his ears. His lungs were frantic for oxygen. The Cicadian Song—the rocket—was now achieving lift-off, and, in spite of the wailings of an unwilling passenger, The pressure forced his insides outwards.
Then—just as Mihād was about to disappear into everything, leaving no distance between subject and object—the pressure resolved! His senses dissolved and a swooping darkness took him. Out of unknown depths, a reel began to unwind…
All thoughts ever thought, all feelings ever felt, all relationships flitted by. There were the earliest images of amma and abba, soon replaced by memories of dearest schoolteachers. Each flitting thread of friendship, every flame of passion kindled and doused, every like and dislike… each zoomed by in an instant.
The highest tower, of an island prison,
A captive Arabian, parched and beaten.
With head bowed, with hands cuffed,
Awaits fate, a blade awaiting.
Early twilight in high English summer,
A garden’s brimming, butteflies aflutter.
A Romeo kneels, a Juliet elopes,
A few miles south, a village befuddled.
The name is Tara, dark and slender she is,
Shrouded in translucent purple, perched atop a backless couch she is.
Reminiscent of a colorful life, overlooking marble flooring,
Onto a midsummer afternoon, peering through teakwood windows she is.
The boy from Sudan, ran away from the gunman,
Away from the village, dusty and overrun.
He knows not plenty, he knows not riches,
Hidden in a cupboard, never mind the roaches.
The Nordic king’s torso is bare.
His mares must have water and so must his men.
Scampering between rock and grassy patches,
They must wrestle that which lurks in the darkest den.
The pious courageous priestess went down a grey compound,
To save the Yazidi girl whom the plunderer did hound.
All the flames’ torches and all the stones’ sound,
Could not drown out the evil that hitherto was abound.
A diligent student, alone in a dull classroom.
Out comes a fairy, and how the room brightens.
She flutters to him, whispers to him,
She enchants him, and how his eyes widen.
And then there was no more. There the reel ended. Abstract as they seem, Mihād understood everything. The waterfall of energy descending up on him filled him up to the brim. His senses restored and he looked out once again onto that muddied country trail. The trail was fenced on one side with birched bark. This time though, he saw with the keenness of a little child, unsullied by memory.
Tears streamed down his cheeks, and those that caught onto the wires of his unkempt beard glistened in the sun. Mihād was ready to surrender. He had found what he wasn’t looking for. With gratitude, he lowered his head down on to the earth and gave back excess energy. When he rose, he no longer heard The Song of the Cicadas.