We’ve entered the last stretch of summer when everything is overripe and so green it feels obscene. The alien whirr of the cicadas enhances the uncanny mood. They spend years underground feeding on the roots of trees before emerging to buzz for a few weeks so they can find a mate, breed, and die. The ones that surface every seventeen years are classified into Broods I through XXIII, which enhances their mythos. I think we’re in the neighborhood of Brood X, but their cycles are getting screwy because of climate change.

Strange how I can fall asleep to traffic, sirens, and yelling in the city, but a few cicadas chirruping in the countryside leave me feeling frazzled and existential. Maybe it’s because they sound so synthetic, like a machine on the fritz. Surely I’ve heard cicadas before, but tonight they sound extraterrestrial—have I never paid attention? Ohio’s forests are noisier and more surreal than I expected.