Crickets
The worms all wriggle out when it starts raining and the mountains darken in the distance until theyre flat against the gradient of the dark sky. The mountains seem 2D, lining against the horizon of our world giving it a most definitive ending.
The end of the world, just within reach.
The trucks pass by when the sun sets and their lights flash bright, colorful against the contrast of the pale night. The minutes, like the traffic, passing by, leading us to a new day.
Another dawn, just within reach.
.
.
The crickets chirp louder on nights like these. Under the night sky, I sit and stare at the road and all the traffic ticking away. The chirping feels so near to me but I've looked all around and I can't find any crickets? It's always been like this. Even as a kid I've tried searching for the crickets but never once did I find them. Sometimes the chirps came from inside the house but no matter how hard I searched, it never seemed to work. Everytime I got up to look for them, the chirping stopped. As if disappearing completely from this world, as if telling me that they only existed in my head, as if teasing me, leading me on, as if holding their breath in anticipation, waiting for me to do something.
Elusive.
Thats what they are.
"Maybe the cold is getting to me."
Staring at the cars driving by tonight feels so serene. It's cold and the chai is nothing special today, but at least its still warm. The cars each have their own lives. Every person driving those cars each have places they've come from and places they're going to. I feel free, I feel outside their world, I feel above them. The moment is broken abruptly by the crickets. The chirping feels way too close to me. I feel uncomfortable. Its too loud. Its too unnatural.
A chirp.
Right next to my ear.
.
.
Ever since I started my career as a stand-up comedian, I've been getting flashes of that night over and over again. It feels imprinted in my brain; a memory so core the brain can't function without it. And it always bugs me because that was the last time I ever noticed crickets chirping. After that night, it felt like they disappeared forever. Vanished. They really were elusive.
I adjust my microphone. Its time for my first set. The crowd is glancing at me and my nerves are getting to me so bad. I've been looking, honestly kinda frantically at the crowd, making sure I dont make too long of an eye contact with anyone. I crack my first joke, my killer opener.
Silence.
I'm trying not to look up. My hearts beating so fast.
"chirp"
"chirp chirp"
My heart drops. I look up.
As a child, I always had tried looking for crickets and in the end, I finally found them. As my jokes fell flat to the silence of the audience, the crickets kept chirping. They finally showed up. I finally found them. And all it took was a terrible joke.