The Surface

By Hannah Hippmann

The cicada fumbled her youthful limbs in darkness. The soft, moisture-filled mixture of wet clay and sand comforted her lime green abdomen. Warmth tickled her antenna. Roots threaded through darkness, the slow pulse of the underground harmonising with her. Finally seventeen. Finally ready to travel into the new realm of existence. 

Bzzzz bzzzzzz 

Maybe she imagined it, but she could almost hear her brother’s familiar hum singing in the world of light. His presence had protected her during the cold winter slumber, where the soil stiffened like stone, and his lullabies soothed her. And his much-needed companionship in the long summer, oh, how she longed to bathe in the light alongside him.

Her forelegs grabbed clay, her hind legs kicking back in an instinctual, seamless motion of joints—the tunnel generations before her had travelled through supported her upwards, nurturing her to adulthood. 

The dirt changed texture. 

Warmer.

Softer. 

Alive. 

*

The familiarity stirred a memory. Her brother’s jade hind legs were almost exiting the earth. You’ll join me soon, he had told her. With each kick of dirt, more entered. She didn’t know how to describe it. It was blinding; she had recoiled at first sight. But beautiful. It was vibrant, warmer than any huddling had given her. It illuminated him. Her brother transformed. He was grown now - seventeen. Shades of metallic jade and lilac bounced off his mystical shell. The world could now see the beauty she always saw in him.

I want to emerge, she thought. Not only the light, but what it promised. Wings. Song. Resonance. Her wings ached inside their casing. 

*

She pushed back into her world again. Her feet attempted to scratch the surface. She was finally here. 

But no. It was cold. Unfamiliar. It was fully grey, no variation. Bits of tough stone and asphalt. It was impossible to break through. She tried again. And again. And again. 

The delicate hooks of her feet started to bleed, and a stinging split through her limbs. The familiar bzzz of her brother turned into the vrrrmmm of violent pounding things. Her abdomen grasped for the familiar pulse of the underground, but it was nothing but dead stone. The soil had turned cold. Swallowing her, trapping her in its endless abyss. 

She flailed her limbs again, but this time it felt as if wet, tough clay had been stuck to her. Her once-fluid movements became more lethargic as the vrooms grew louder. And scarier. She wanted her brother back—the world she had waited seventeen years for blocked her out like vermin. 

Sluggishly, the cicada retreated deeper into the tunnel that had betrayed her. She curled into a cocoon, wishing for the world to dull her pain. Maybe in another life, she could embrace the truth of that illuminating light. She closed her eyes and pictured her wings spread under the golden embrace, harmonising in song with her brother. 

She wanted to be anything but seventeen.