First date

“I think I am plenty surprised, already, and quite possibly losing my shit. Anyway, she was very determined. I think she’s part cat. Every time I tried to get it away from her, excuse me, HIM, she grabbed him and ran to the other side of the yard. Didn’t you see me cover him with a giant leaf when she finally dropped him for a minute? She couldn’t see him anymore, so I was able to get her inside the house. So she didn’t actually eat him, she just.. Played with him.”

If you could see beady black eyes without irises roll, this is what he did. My explanation was exact, though! She didn’t EAT his friend. “He still died, Human. Died from those injuries.”

“Furthermore, I don’t know why I even care if she played with him, or why you care, either. He may have been your friend, but isn’t that less competition for you with the ladies? Isn’t it better that he’s gone?”

“You’d think so,” he said wistfully. “But we did live in burrows next to each other for 17 years, so we grew up together. We had many, many long conversations. So aside from the fact that in an odd way, your dog leveled the playing field, so to speak, it is bittersweet.”

I blinked the sweat out of my eyes, and wiped my forehead to no real avail. The air was almost suffocating. I am sure that has to be why I am sitting here, having a conversation with a cicada and not actually freaking out, other than wondering why the hell I am sitting here, having a conversation with a cicada.

The least of which because I have never liked them, because when I was six years old, a boy at my babysitter’s house used to snatch them off tree branches, and squeeze them so they would scream loudly, and chase me, up and down the street. Once he was chasing me through the yard, and I tried to climb the chain link fence to escape him, snagging the inside of my knee on the top of the metal fence, blood pouring down my leg. I have that scar to this day and have never forgotten how or why I have it. “You have that scar to always remember us!” He said, butting into my thoughts. “Nick shouldn’t have been chasing you on the daily with us, but we can’t transform in broad daylight and blow our cover, so we just went along with it. He was a sadistic prick. He was soon removed.”

“Removed???? Wait, what the fuck, how are you doing that? How are you talking, and how are you reading my mind? Where is everyone, why are your loud ass little buddies quiet all of a sudden?”

“We’re not alone. They aren’t quiet, you just can’t hear them, the way we truly speak. With our minds. Which is how I can hear yours.”

I started to feel unnerved, and then I remembered he just said we can’t transform in broad daylight and blow our cover. My blood ran cold, and I began to wonder if I was still breathing, because I could not move.