Rob S. Friedman
July 2025
Unlike Cicadas
• Best of the Net Nominee
Unlike the cicadas returning after seventeen years, ready to swarm and percuss in chorus, I shunned my acquaintances, sold the house and headed west to inhale the hope that sweetens the harshness of new starts.
Unlike those incurious cicadas, programmed by God to withstand the dampness of the dirt and emerge to take on the world — one where cicadas are symbols of certainty — I rolled a pair of American dice.
The droll croupier announces the roll’s number, as if there’s no role for surprise, unlike the cicadas that will crash into his windshield on his drive home while I’m halfway to the surf and sunset.
Someone tan built a sand Brian Wilson near the lifeguard station, carved it from pailsful of Pacific sand, shell and jetsam. Surfers bob atop swells, and unlike cicadas, share with me their resigned surly optimism.
Rob S. Friedman 