palace of winds

There’s a cricket somewhere — in the apartment, right outside the door, it’s hard to tell — shrieking disconsolately. Making a high, shivery, mechanical sound, like a tiny overloaded washing machine. How his wings make that hideous noise is beyond me.

The cricket invasion is worse this year than it was last. For whatever reason their favorite spot to congregate is right outside our door. There are some scattered everywhere on the sidewalk, sure, but ours is the only place where there are over a dozen outside, and half a dozen more crawling around the doorstep. Every night. Every morning. Most afternoons, though usually then there are less. I expect that’s when most of them go off to eat and sleep. Make ready for a night of continued merriment.

They’re plotting ways to get inside, I can tell. Ways to eat our rugs and our clothes and our toes at night. Skulking around the bathroom, the hall, the living room. With crickets it’s always about world domination. Breeding and jumping in wild, unpredictable patterns and grating wings.

Look out, boys. Tomorrow we fight back.