summer '07

My parents decided to take a vacation every summer since the near death of my mother. She recovered almost miraculously from a deadly cancer, possibly inherited from her father. Pop-pop was not as lucky. My dad bought a cabin in the woods of western North Carolina that we could rent out year round until we wanted to spend a few weeks there ourselves.

            The first time we drove to the cabin, my mom thought death had come back to her. We drove our packed van uphill, near the edge of the mountain. My mom held my arm with her sweating hands and closed her eyes. I also felt scared, but instead I stared out the window into the trees. I took in every bit of beauty I could, so at least if we did die, I would die peacefully.

            I focused on the way the thick canopy sliced up the sun's rays. I watched the shadows slide and dance across the window as the car rocked on the uneven road. I thought of my mom laying in her hospital bed in an all white room. A bouquet of lilies rested in her lap. She fingered the petals of the flowers as a doctor told her that she may never recover. I remember being confused and the way she explained it was that she was going to be dancing with the lilies soon. She always found beauty in everything and I am certainly my mother's child.

            When we reached the cabin my arm was already turning black and blue. Out of the car, the wind rustling the leaves almost deafened me. My mom was covering her ears and immediately took the keys to run inside. I turned to my dad and asked him why the leaves were so loud. "Those aren't leaves," he told me. "Those are the cicadas."

            “Is that a bird or something?” I asked.

            “No, they are these bugs about the size of my thumb. They come out in the summer and make that noise.”

            After packing up the cabin, I decided to take my .22 Remington rifle and a compass into the woods to find the bugs, determined to kill as many as I could for hurting my mom. The rifle was a recent gift for my 13th birthday. I walked only northeast, so that I only had to walk southwest back to the cabin. I looked all the way up the trunk of every tree I passed, but there was never any sign of bugs. They were like invisible creatures. After walking for ten minutes, I passed another cabin. A van sat in front of it, with luggage packed on top. I wondered if they were arriving or leaving.

            Deeper into the forest I found a circular clearing. Laying there in the sunlight was a girl, my age. She wore a floral printed dress and looked as if she existed in a different world. Her eyes were closed and her face was pointed up towards the sky, where the sun came into the clearing. Just by looking I could feel the warmth she felt. I did not know how tense my body had been until every one of my muscles relaxed.

            "I'm listening to the music." She heard me walk up. She opened her eyes and after reading my face said, "If you were wondering."

            "Oh," I said, pretending I understood.

            "Come sit with me a bit?"

             I walked over to the clearing and laid across from her.

            She continued, "I always wondered what people did when they heard cicadas for the first time. I bet they were scared." I was scared. "They must have thought the trees were screaming."

            "When my mom heard them, she ran inside our cabin."

            "Is there something wrong with her?"

            "She used to be very sick. She's better now."

            "Oh." She seemed to not believe me.

We sat for a few moments, taking in the heat. The clouds moved over and past the sun. The cicadas would change their song to this; the sun a verse and the clouds a chorus.

            "We bought a cabin here ‘cause my mom was sick," I explained. "We thought it would be a nice thing to do, you know?"

            "That is very nice."

            "How come you come here? Are you with your family?"

            "The same reason, you could say. We come every year, at the same time. This is my favorite place in the world, right here. I walk into the trees where the cicadas sing. They sing to me and tell me of the end of the world. I keep coming back because it's a song I can’t get over. It’s always the same too. The world is ending, the world is ending."

 

 

 

summer '08

It was Mother's day when I woke up immobile in my bed. A sadness had taken over me and I was afraid I could take my own life. I told my mother how I was feeling, thinking she would have an answer. She did not know what to do, but she asked me if there was anything I needed. I told her anything but a bouquet of lilies. At this she cried.

            We went out that night to see my grandmother. She asked about the cancer and my mother explained that she was healthy now and there was no need to worry about any of us. There was lots of crying that day. I remember the only way I kept myself together was to stare at the full Moon any chance I got. I stared at it and pretended that its gravity would be strong enough to pull me up.

            I saw a lot of brain doctors, as my father called them. Some I only needed to talk to, and others gave me different medicines. They were supposed to cure my sadness but none of them worked. One pill in particular killed my emotions almost completely the first day. On the second day I felt as if my skull belonged to someone else. In the end, they could not find the source of my problem.

            My mother said that the cabin would help me. I had been looking forward to going again. I missed the cicadas, the dancing shadows, the girl in the sun, and even the bruises left on my arm from my mother's grip. When we went up this time, everything was exactly the same. We parked outside the cabin, my mother ran inside, I grabbed my gun and my compass and headed northeast into the woods.I walked for ten minutes, saw the packed up van, and finally found the clearing. She was laying there in the exact same spot as before. Her hair was longer, she was thinner and today she was wearing an all black dress. The dress reminded me of Audrey Hepburn, whom my mother adored and watched her films nonstop while in the hospital. I couldn't help smiling as I walked up to greet her.

            "I had a feeling I'd see you again," she said. She was smiling too. I laid next to her just as I had before.

            "The cicadas must have sung about me, huh?" She seemed saddened by this. "I've been thinking about you for a while," I continued. "I have been very sick and very sad and I thought you might be able to help me."

            "I'd love to help you," she said. "Talk to me."

            I told her everything. I told her in school I'd put my head on my desk for the entire class, not falling asleep but ignoring everyone around me. I told her about how I picked at my nails even after they started to bleed. I told her about not eating for days on end. I told her about Mother's Day.

            She told me I was doing a really good job. She told me that even though it seemed like everything was falling apart, I still had my feet in this world. It made me feel good to hear, though I always felt like my feet could lift off and I would be sucked into the moon at any moment.

            "Just keep looking for the beauty in everything. If you can keep finding life beautiful, it won't matter if you live or die, but you will live a long time."

            "I don't think I will have a problem with that," I said. I asked her about the cicadas. "Do you still hear them singing that song to you?"

            "Oh I almost got used to it by now. It's just not the cicadas anymore. In every noise I hear the song. I hear it in the cicadas, in my mother's crying, even in words you speak to me now."

 

 

 

summer '09

It was the morning of Valentine's Day when I had a dream about the girl. She was swimming upstream, struggling. I was on a boat next to her, rowing with her but unable to help her. She was out of breath already when the rapids started. The current kept her head under and I could only watch as she gasped for air and swallowed the river. I wanted to help her so bad but I was stuck there, alone, in my little boat until I could not see her anymore. I woke up crying. I had no way to know if she was really dead or not.

            The same day too, my mother told us she was sick again.

            We went to the cabin again that summer. My mother did not grab my arm as she used to. Instead, she did as I had done and watched the leaves' shadows. We made it to the cabin and she did not run inside, instead she calmly helped unpack. She would stand too, for a while, between the cabin and the car, listening to the cicadas. I walked into the woods, but instead of taking my rifle and my compass, I took my mom instead.

            I told her all about the girl as we walked. I told her about the song she would hear. She asked me if I was in love with her. I told her I do not know what love is. What I didn’t say is that I feel like I will never know.

             Her expression told me she felt an increasing amount of pain, the cicadas sang louder. The walk felt longer having my mother with me. We passed the other cabin, this time there was no van but a car parked in front. A woman walked out of the cabin and toward the forest where we were. She called to me and we walked over. “You must be looking for my daughter,” she said, with a frown. I only nodded in return, and swallowed hard because I knew she was about to tell me bad news. “She’s passed away. Stomach cancer. We came out here one last time to memorialize her.”

            I was distraught and left her and my mom without a word and walked towards the clearing. Instead of finding the girl laying in the sun, planted there was a patch of lilies. I laid next to them as I would have done if the girl was there. The way they moved in the wind brought me to tears. I was bawling loudly until my own tears were drowned away by music. I calmed down to get a better listen. It was the cicadas singing their song to me. They told me of the end of the world. It is the most beautiful song I will ever hear.