Here's a short story of the cicada, © Latah Cicada Productions.
Cindy the cicada awakens after 9 years of restful growing. "Where am I?" she wonders. "How long has it been?" It's been 9 years, Cindy. You missed the new Millennium celebration, the start of the Iraq War, the Ewing brothers eating nasty cheeses in France, and a host of other things. And little does Cindy know that she's several feet under dirt, but her innate sense of gravity guides her upward toward the light. She digs and digs and digs, until at last she emerges, dirty and determined.
Just then, Henry the dog shuffles by, sniffing vigorously for food and feces. He finds a tasty cicada, and in an instant Cindy is no longer.
Meanwhile, Sinbad the cicada is emerging from his 9 year slumber. Sinbad's and Cindy's internal clocks have synchronized within minutes. Not bad considering a 9 year wait. Henry the dog has moved on to the compost pile, and spares Sinbad unknowingly. The little cicada crawls in search for the nearest tree. Instead, Sinbad ends up against a huge structure of pro-panel, steel and glass. But wait! Just before the glass is a mesh screen, to which Sinbad easily attaches his hook like legs. He climb up a hundred times his height and has reached his destination. Nothing left to do but lean back and crack.
After just ten minutes of loitering on the screen, Sinbad's exoskeleton begins to crack open. Ever so slowly, Sinbad the Second pushes out, keen to leave behind that dirty thick shell.
Meanwhile, twenty feet away on a nearby tree branch, Cinnabar the cicada the Second is also emerging from her 9 year old shell.
Oooo that feels good. It's taken a couple hours to crack out of her shell, and she'll hang out for a while longer to dry out and gain some wing strength.
An hour later, Sinbad the Second is feeling pretty swell. He flaps his wings like it's second nature and is off. Later that afternoon, while sunning on a grass stem, the finger of a monster, a human he thinks, picks him up. This monster moves slowly and gently, though, and Sinbad is content to sit on the finger.
The fateful meeting happens soon thereafter. Sinbad flexes his drum-like membrane, creating a deafening buzz that she-cicadas like Cinnabar find irresistible. Sinbad greets Cinnabar in a dusty meadow next to a fuzzy mullein plant. They exchange vibrations and mate.
Their encounter over, Sinbad flies off in search for another damsel in distress. Cinnabar flies over to a nearby tree branch. She deftly cuts slits in the bark and deposits her hundred eggs. Exhausted, she takes to the ground and dies, ending her 9 year life only a couple hundred feet from where she began.
Not too long after, dozens of cicada nymphs hatch and fall from their barky beginnings to the ground. They dig, dig, and dig far into the earth to spend their next 3,000 days in hiding.
