Blue

The Outside Time was close. Everybody knew. It was an almost tangible buzz around the colony that alerted everyone to the event that was soon at hand. No one explicitly talked about what was going to happen (for the Cicadas are a superstitious species), but by the time May 1st rolled around the Underground was bursting with anticipation. 

“WE ARE GOING TO THE ABOVEGROUND!” finally came the shout on Tuesday.

A mighty roar went up among the brood and it seemed as though they might break through the soil then and there but instinct would not allow it just yet. 

If it were measurable, the eagerness of one particular cicada would easily stick out among the rest. No one around him could really tell why Samuel was so excited for the Outside Time and neither did they care all that much (for the Cicadas are keenly aware of the value of personal space), but still it was impossible not to notice the increasing euphoria that he seemed to be filling with.

Samuel of course knew. He knew why he was almost bursting through his exoskeleton with anticipation and why he constantly caught himself lost in daydreams. 

It had been six years earlier while feeding on the root of a tree when he’d felt a presence next to him. At first he thought nothing of it because when you live among a brood of a million other insects your are liable to feel a presence quite often. But as he continued eating Samuel could tell something was different. He turned and looked and was met with a sight that would forever alter the very purpose of his existence. 

Blue. 

Brilliant, blazing, incomprehensibly magnificent blue. 

“I have died.” said Samuel out loud. 

Then he heard a laugh. 

He shook his head and looked again and realized that what he was looking at were eyes.

“Hi.” She said. 

At this point, Samuel had lost all sense of expected propriety (for the Cicadas are an incredibly polite species), and almost shouted,

“You have blue eyes!”

She laughed again. 

“Yes that’s what I’ve been told. How is this root?”

“The-this root? Oh it’s delicious! Here, here be my guest.”

He moved over to make room for her and couldn’t help but stare as she tasted the nectar. 

In the few moments that had passed Samuel felt himself change. His very being remade into something unrecognizable. Where before he had just been a cicada he now felt outside of himself. As if there was something that existed that was bigger and grander than anything he had previously comprehended. 

“I hope you don’t think the color of my eyes as too harsh.” he said, seemingly out of nowhere. 

She looked up at him for a moment as if to consider how she really felt.

“I think they are the absolute loveliest shade of scarlet.”

If Cicadas could blush, that is what Samuel would have done. 

“The Outside time is soon.” She continued. 

“Another six years.”

“You should come find me.”

Samuel’s heart stopped. 

“Y-you mean in the Outside Time?’

She laughed once again and with a nod turned and began to walk away.

“See you in six years.”

Samuel tried to call after her and ask for her name but too quickly she was lost in the throng of the rush hour feeding. It didn’t matter though, it seemed as though he already knew her name, but it was something so sacred it was unspeakable and barely even knowable. 

For six years Samuel saw nothing but those eyes. They constantly danced before him in an ethereal pattern, taunting and reminding him of the impossibility that what had happened was real.

But it was real, and he knew it, and when the Outside Time finally came he could barely contain himself.

One morning, almost as if a signal had been sent out, the entire brood instantaneously knew that it was time. They began their methodical burrowing, all the while cheering and shouting for their impending triumph. 

Samuel did not cheer. He was focused. He burrowed with the intensity of a bug who had found meaning in meaningless life for that is truly what he was. When he reached the Aboveground it took him a moment to get a bearing on his surroundings but instinct was already pushing him up the trunk of a tree. 

He knew he must be patient and for what seemed like an eternity he waited as nature performed its work. 

All the while, those eyes kept up their dance. “You should come find me! Come and find me!” they taunted over and over. 

Samuel emerged from his old skin and spreading his new wings, immediately took off in pursuit of those blue eyes. 

He darted in and out of tree branches keeping a sharp eye out for his love though he was sure it would be easy to spot that splendid blue from a mile away. He flew for hours, darting from tree to tree, landing and singing out, calling for her. By the end of that first day, he had not found her but his excitement and eagerness had not waned. He knew he would find her. 

The days turned into weeks and soon a paralyzing anxiety began to overcome Samuel. He spent hour after hour singing, desperately hopeful that she would recognize his call and arrive hailing his lovely scarlet eyes. Other Cicadas would turn up, attracted by his song, but none were her and all he ignored. 

His joy turned to despair as he began to give up hope of ever finding what he had so blindly anticipated for six years. He flew listlessly, calling out sporadically, worn out from weeks of searching.

He was ready to call it a life, when suddenly out of the corner of his eye he saw something gleam in the sunlight. 

Blue!

There, 500 yards away, perched on the bark of a birch tree was a Cicada who eyes were the color that had so long haunted Samuel’s dreams. 

“I found you!” He shouted, “I found you I’ve finally found you! I Love you!” 

He headed straight for her, the level of euphoria he was experiencing unrivaled by any other in the entire history of insects. 

The same can be said of the pain he was soon plunged in to. 

“You idiot!” he screamed at himself. His sobs taking over anything else he wanted to yell. 

He sat there on the tree next to the empty molten exoskeleton of the Blue Eyed Cicada and cried through the night. 

In the morning he felt something around his shoulder. It was the arm of another Cicada, quietly offering comfort. (for Cicadas, even though intensely aware of personal space, are remarkably compassionate when it’s all said and done.) 

“You wailed all night.” he said. “It’s a shame what happened. As soon as she came out of her skin a great big flying beast swooped in and carried her away. I suppose it was the color of those eyes that made her stand out. Awful shame.”

Samuel said nothing. He felt numb and tired. He was weak, too weak to carry on and he felt himself slipping away. 

As he fell back towards the earth and unconsciousness began to envelop him, Samuel looked up at the immense sky and with the tiniest sliver of happiness noticed that it was the absolute loveliest, shade of blue.