Evening...

[tristfully]

'Cicadas at the End of Summer'

Whine as though a pine tree is bowing a broken violin,
As though a bandsaw cleaves a thousand thin sheets of
titanium;
They chime like freight wheels on a Norfolk Southern
slowing into town.

But all you ever see is the silence.
Husks, glued to the underside of maple leaves.
With their nineteen fifties Bakelite lines they'd do
just as well hanging from the ceiling of a space
museum —

What cicadas leave behind is a kind of crystallized memory;
The stubborn detail of, the shape around a life turned

The color of forgotten things: a cold broth of tea & milk
in the bottom of a mug.
Or skin on an old tin of varnish you have to lift with
lineman's pliers.
A fly paper that hung thirty years in Bird Cooper's pantry
in Brighton.

Martin Walls

[.......]

Will someone please tell me the steps to unlocking the memory inside of a cicada shell? Succinctly.

Comments

[tristfully]

You know, they'll have to cancel finals if one of us dies.

Just saying.

[nublada]

I would absolutely crush a GED.


[...] Wait, is someone going to die if I do or don't start burying my rock??

[tristfully]

That's yet to be seen. Although, I wouldn't over worry. Everything is already in motion.

[nublada]

So I may or may not be responsible for someone's death and there's not much I can do about it so I might as well keep recklessly plowing ahead??

Sounds like a typical weekday, to be perfectly honest.

[themurderbird]

They had better not cancel finals.

[nublada]

We could petition to take them in a private facility where there are no bug rocks or ghost bugs.

[themurderbird]

Oh, agreed! That seems fair, all considering.

[merlinpletcher]

Who cares? We're graduating either way.

Besides, do you want to take exams written by possessed professors?

[themurderbird]

I care! How will I make valedictorian without final grades? How will I put it on my Curriculum Vitae?

As long as I can excel at them, then why not?

[merlinpletcher]

Just use the grades we've already got? Easy. Besides, everyone knows you're going to be valedictorian.

Can't trust them. Not for anything.

[themurderbird]

But it's not the same if I don't prove it.

You think their knowledge of their areas of expertise is compromised? Besides, are any of them possessed other than Treetops?

[merlinpletcher]

You'll prove it. Just maybe not with exams.

I don't care about their expertise. I just mean I wouldn't trust anyone that's compromised like this. [...] It's just Treetops so far. But that could change.