Rejoin & Rejoice

There was the loud crunch of a cicada being crushed. She winced and carried on, grinding her sneaker against the asphalt as she did. Crack. She grimaced and carried on, eyes turned to the sidewalk while she wiped her shoes in the damp grass of her neighbour’s front yard. Dead and dying cicadas littered the world around her; it was that time of summer again.

Two broods—that’s what her mom raved, and her dad groaned. “They’re going to be everywhere!” It certainly sounded like everywhere; the world was being deafened by it. But Millie found herself enjoying their scream-song. It rattled and echoed, seeping into her skin and filling her to the brim. With it warbling beneath her, the air didn’t feel so heavy.

The humidity couldn’t clog her lungs if the cicadas were already there.

Millie tried to watch her step. She stuck to the grass strips and kept her steps as light as she could—hoping she could press any unfortunate cicadas into the earth instead of crushing them against it.

They deserved to be whole when they died.

She followed the grass the best she could, winding through twisted neighbourhood roads to a gap between fences and a cracked, concrete path covered in carcasses. The grass stretched beyond the neighbouring backyards and into the bit of woods beyond; the concrete petered out to dirt before it could hit the treeline.

They called it a park, but it had no playground. It was neither kept nor clean, nor entirely safe. There was a small portion of creek that curved just within the edge, drawing the border of the closest thing there was to ‘wild’ in their little city. There was a bridge further down the path, but they always preferred taking a fallen tree if there was one. It was more magical. Theatrical. There could be anything on the other side of the tree: Narnia, Terebithia, where the wild things are. They could become wild themselves over the tree—turn into things of mud and trees and water and be free in the ‘wilderness’ of their home—and then wash it all off, become children again, as they crossed back. Letting the creek below them wash it all away until they were flesh and bone once more.

The bridge was simple. Metal, graffiti’d, and still slick from the earlier storm—and based on the humidity, would stay that way until the building rain was long gone. It was riddled with cicadas, some still sing-screaming as they lay dying on the slats.

Ghosts haunted her soles.

Cracks and crunches echoed in her ears.

There was a freshly fallen tree in the opposite direction.

Its branches reached up and around and down, crumpled against the earth and littered in waxy, green leaves. Across the creek, deeper into the woods, its roots did the same. Clumped together, amassed in dirt and mud, and some things once buried. The lowest roots still clung to the earth; the rest were broken and spread. A halo of broken ends shining into the wild.

Who was Millie to deny the temptation? She wasn’t a child anymore, but she could still become wild. “Don’t mind if I do.” She grinned to herself, scraping her sole against the bark as she scrambled up the trunk. Her hands grew slick and gunk-covered. The bark bit at her palms and scraped her shins as she pushed herself to stand.

A moment.
Two.

Arms out, fingers stretching to grasp nonexistent railings. The air was heavier here. Humidity flooded her lungs, seeping between the teeth of her smile and removing the cicadas found there.

One step, two.
Four steps, five.

Her legs carried her across the once-tree. Beneath her, the echoes of childish laughter and the ghosts of boys grabbing at her ankles to pull her into the water. Above her, the memories of wind and handmade effigies hanging from the canopy. Her feet stumbled at a ghost, and her hands grasped for long-gone twine and twig.

Bark rushed up to meet her, eating at her palms before it could touch her face. The final cicada left her throat when she cracked out a laugh at the impact. Her chest ached in the familiarity.

She remembered doing the same to others when she had been delegated to the creek during play. Pretending to be a monster in the water, grabbing at ankles, pant legs, shoelaces, whatever they could grab on the crossers to kill them with the water.

It must have been too early for the new troupe of neighbour kids to play as wild and traverse the woods as Millie did, for she made it to the roots with only ghosts, memories, and that ache in her chest.

Balancing before the halo of roots, Millie smiled and pressed her hands against the winding things. The dirt caught in them was damp against her palms, joining the gunk she hadn’t wiped off on her shirt or shorts. Her forehead joined her hands in farewell.

Pain shot up her ankle, and a laugh from her lips, as she jumped from the trunk. Mud splashed up her ankles as one twisted, and she half fell to the ground. The earth hesitated to greet her as the bark had done. The ache spread to her neck as she lost her breath. Strings of broken roots strung to her collar, keeping her knees from hitting the floor. She coughed and wheezed, showing her teeth all the while, and grasped for those long-gone effigies—landing on unearthed roots and relieving the pressure on her throat. Her other hand fumbled at the back of her neck, tearing at the roots, scratching her palm, and stumbling free.

The cicadas were louder on this side of the creek. There were more of them alive, sticking to trees and flying around her. The air was heavier. Millie felt lighter. Memories made breathing easier. Childish laughter echoed in harmony with the cicadas. Glimpses of childhood friends dodged between the trees as they ran deeper into their small square of wild.

She could see herself the clearest: tallest of their troupe, dripping in creek water, and playing as a creature from the black lagoon while all the other neighbour kids played afraid. Screaming, screeching, and sprinting through the wild while young Millie stalked after them, jumping the cairns they’d built and dodging hanging effigies. Millie longed for people to chase. To fall back into her role of creature and fully let herself be engrossed by the wild.

Following behind herself, she passed over fallen piles of rocks and below empty, frayed, hanging twine. She couldn’t believe how many strings still hung from the branches—the deeper she ventured, the denser it became. The air became heavier and heavier. Cicadas grew bountiful—flying and scream-singing across every tree and empty string. They hung lower as she stalked her ghost, brushing against her head and shoulders. Caressing her as she passed. Remembering her as they remembered her ghost.

In the loudness and heaviness of the world, Millie felt impossibly light. Her soles barely brushed the wet dirt, leaving any cicadas underfoot completely unscathed. Singing. Screaming. The clouds were on the verge of breaking; she could smell it. Feel it. Feel them tugging at her with the promise of rain. The creek didn’t get her when she entered, so the rain will have to do. Hopefully, soon. Before she managed to reach the other side of the wild and escaped back into the neighbourhood.

But, before that could happen, she would reach the clearing.

It was just visible in the distance—a point where the trees seemed to just stop, and the empty strings eventually followed suit.

Her feet fell faster, yet ever lighter, as she escaped to the clearing behind the memory of herself climbing up to the treehouse. Though it was less of a house and more of a fenced-in platform sat high up in the lone, forked tree off the center of the clearing. Empty strings hung from the lower branches. Weathered and broken effigies were scattered at the roots. She danced around them, landing at the ladder nailed up the trunk. Her memory reached the platform, dripping creek water down at her.

One drop.
Two.

The old and weathered planks of the ladder bit at her palms. Splinters buried themselves in her skin, and singing cicadas crawled along the bark, investigating her. Her nails ached as she scrambled for purchase. Her toes folded at the thin edge of the planks as she began her climb.

One rung, two.
Four rungs, five.

The platform at the top was wet and covered in cicadas. They were everywhere, and so impossibly loud. She never knew they could be so loud. So deafening and all-consuming. She stood at the top of the ladder—her head level with the floor—and let her body get filled with cicada song. It made her weightless. It carried her up to the platform proper. Her soles touching down, and the cicadas singing beneath her.

When she was younger, the treehouse was a theatre. But the current troupe didn’t seem to use it.

A number of palettes sat on one side of the twin trunks. Still-hanging effigies framed it. Water-logged, moldy, and bug-ridden cushions and blankets sat scattered on the other side.

Millie remembered performing on that stage: one-woman plays and talent show acts just for her and the wild things.

She joined the memory of herself on the stage, carried by cicada song and effigy string. As her memory performed to the ghosts of wild neighbour kids, Millie found herself strung for the cicadas that made them. Effigy string tied at her, folding her through her past performances. It ate into her wrists and ankles—and she knew it should hurt. But she couldn’t feel anything but the song inside her and the lightness in her bones. Nothing could hold her down as the air finally broke and the clouds opened up above her.

She basked in the rain and the lightness of the world around her. Her memory doing the same as she performed again and again and again. Twine strung around her elbows and knees, bending and dislocating the joints—distorting her dance to do the same to her shoulders and hips. She couldn’t hear how her body cracked over the songs of the cicadas, or feel another piece wring itself around her neck for one final crunch.