Timmy was a regular kid. This story is about him. 

There was a sort of chattering chorus that reverberated off the trees lining the open green field, the sound rising upwards to a bright yellow sun. The cicadas were out. Timmy had seen their dried up shells stuck to the oaks as they entered the park. 

“Neat!” He thought. 

Timmy had no idea how cicadas worked. How do they just get rid of their skin? Why are the eyes on there too? What the hell is inside that shell when its not on the tree?

He peeled one of the shells off a tree, and stuck his pointer finger through the back where it had split open. The shell now clung to his finger. “This is cool!” said Timmy.

Timmy and the gang were at the park today. They played baseball here sometimes if the older kids had already claimed the field at the school. Timmy wasn’t the leader of the gang or anything, he was just how you imagine a little kid named Timmy would be. The other kids were also still kinda dumb and small. They just did regular kid stuff like play baseball, ride bikes, collect bugs, stomp on mushy things – that kind of stuff. 

Today they were finishing up a game they started two days before. A storm had moved in and they decided to beat the rain home. The game was tied up now and there was an immediate intensity to the little tikes game as they took the field. Billy Buchanon was up at bat first. He had big pudgy hands that were always flushed red. He sort of looked like a chubby crab or lobster that had been steamed. 

Billy stepped up to the plate and farted. That was his signature move. Timmy was watching from left field as the pitcher got ready to throw the ball. The wind up, the pitch, strike one. “Yea right!” Billy said. The next two pitches were off the mark and now the count was 2-1. Billy wanted to hit the ball. The next pitch was down the middle and Billy Buchanon bonked the ball way the heck out there! 

Timmy heard the crack of the bat and watched the ball as it flew up and over his head. He thought he saw it hit a tree, bounce, and then roll further into the wooded area behind the field. They only had one ball and if they lost it, then they lost the game! Leaves crunched and twigs snapped as Timmy still with hope sought after the baseball. The voices of his peers started to fade away as Timmy went farther into the woods. Still no ball. 

His attention now turned to his breath. It was really the only thing he could hear. The sun was out but the air was a bit cool and Timmy could feel it in his lungs. He stopped to catch his breath and get his bearings. “Aw crap.” Timmy said. He wasn’t supposed to use that word but he was really upset. Timmy looked around and couldn’t see any ball, couldn’t see the field either, or any opening or clearing for that matter. “Me thinks I am lost,” he said.

For the next few hours, Timmy sort of just trudged around through the blanket of leaves that littered the forest floor. If you could have seen his path traced out from a bird’s eye view you’d think this kid is really dumb. He had been circling pretty much the same area the whole time. At this point all of his fingers had a cicada shell on the end of them. He would sort of pinch his fingers together like a claw so all the cicadas amassed together and that gave him a thrill. He wondered what his friends were doing.

“I bet he’s probably walking in circles with cicadas on his fingers.” Billy said. Everyone laughed at this and then made a farting sound with their mouth. Billy’s team had won the game. “Dinner time at my house!” Billy said. “We’re going to Billy’s!” they shouted at the woods as they left the park, hoping that Timmy would hear and eventually get out of there.

Seventeen years passed. 

Billy and the gang forgot about the dinner they had that night after the game. They forgot about Timmy. They forgot about each other. 

Initially Timmy’s disappearance was treated as a missing persons incident. They figured he might’ve been kidnapped or something. His parents were devastated in any case. Timmy was their only child and after the first two years of Timmy’s absence, their marriage had failed as well.

Every day things like this happen. You’ll hear of someone in town that you know of or used to know and how something terrible happened to them or their family and its no more than something shocking to whisper about at dinner. To the family though, it is earth-shattering. It’s the crumbling tower of Babel, the exploding of a star, or maybe just an “X” in a diary.

The town moved on and Timmy’s parents sort of just drifted farther and farther apart and became smaller and smaller themselves until they just ceased to exist. 

**SEVENTEEN YEARS PRIOR** 

Timmy thought he heard someone shout something about dinner. He was in front of a tree with his forehead leaning against its trunk, eyes closed, arms at his side, the cicadas hung will-lessly from his dangling fingers. Before opening his eyes he tried his best to figure out where the sound had come from. 

“…dinner time…”

Timmy’s head righted itself in an instant, his eyes now wide open. He definitely heard something, but this was more of a whisper. A few leaves crinkled beneath Timmy’s feet as they shuffled about face. The sun had already dipped below the horizon and on the field the park’s evening lights now buzzed to life, doing nothing to lighten the deepening shadow of the woods. 

“…dinner time…”

Again! Timmy was sure this time. He turned to where the voice came from. He didn’t see anyone, but still he began moving that way. There was a sort of path that the voice now led Timmy on. Still covered with leaves but weaving its way through the mess of trees and old roots that broke through the forest floor. That path now led down a rather long hill.

“…DINNER TIME…”

The hill led down to this sort of clearing. It wasn’t clear of leaves or trees or anything else for that matter, but you could tell it was significant. It was a place. Unlike the rest of the forest Timmy had been scampering through, this area was different. About sixty feet across at its widest point, the area was roughly in the shape of a circle. Surrounded by hill or mounded dirt on every side apart from where Timmy had entered, he now stood in the middle of this bowl. 

“DINNER TIME!”

Just then the ground below Timmy gave way. In an instant his body was rushing downwards. Leaves and earth crumbled and fell about him and on him. With a dull thud he landed on his back. He groaned. Sitting up he braced himself with an arm on either side and shook the dirt out of his hair. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness he looked around for the first time and found that he was now in an actual bowl. A large metal bowl at least an inch thick and five feet high. 

“SILENCE!” said the voice.

Timmy farted then for a very long time. 

“ENOUGH!”

Timmy’s fart stopped in place but was ready to go at a moment’s notice, as if it was playing freeze dance. He didn’t know it, but that would be the last real fart he would be able to produce for the rest of his life. He was scared. He felt the bottom of the bowl with his hands, patting around his feet first and then branching outwards. The cicadas were still on his fingertips but they seemed to be glowing now. Actually, he could see a faint glow scattered here and there about the bottom of the bowl where he sat. He got to his feet and looking over the rim of the bowl he could see the whole floor of this cavernous underground room now glowing with these strange cicada shells. 

“NOW THEN” said the voice.

Timmy for the first time recognized that this voice might be attached to someone or something for that matter. At the opposite end of the room he saw this great hulking figure. A massive shadow. The shadow became wider and lifted itself as if it were a man raising their arms. Just then, an incredible buzzing sound came through the same hole that Timmy dropped through. Looking up, Timmy saw a stream of cicadas, these ones glowing green, swarming over his head and towards the shadowy figure. They landed on the figure one by one filling out its frame, until a great green glowing beast stood before Timmy.

“DINNER TIME!!!”

The beast charged at the bowl, at Timmy. Timmy said “aw crap” and closed his eyes. But just then, something marvelous happened. The cicadas on the ends of Timmy’s fingers began to glow brighter. The shells at the bottom of the bowl now brighter as well. Just before the beast got to the bowl, there was a great flash and rush of heat. Timmy opened his eyes. He was ok.

“HISSSSS,” hissed the beast.

“CHT-CHT-CHT-CHT-CHT-CHT,” said Timmy. He looked down. ‘Aw crap,’ he thought. He had turned into a golden glowing cicada monster boy. Timmy was now the champion, the caretaker, the shepherd of the cicada shell, the ghosts of cicadas passed. 

The glowing green beast didn’t feel like eating Timmy anymore. It appeared now to be squatting before him. Slowly, a dark shape began to pass from behind its legs. The shadow fell out of the beast’s rear, sinking into the ground. At the same time the cicadas glowing green began to lift away from the figure and zip away out of the hole and into the night sky. 

“CHT-CHT-CHT-FRT”

“CHT-FRT-FRT-FRT”

…

“FRT-FRT-FRT-FRT-FRT-FRT-FRT”

**BACK TO THE PRESENT AND THEREAFTER**

Timmy’s disappearance had been long forgotten. It was seventeen years before he was remembered. There were a few people left in town that even remembered Timmy at all. One of these people was Jan Ripken. She was Timmy’s teacher the year that he went missing. Timmy was very dumb and annoying in class, but she knew he had a good heart. 

One evening Jan was walking home from the park. She did a lot of walking now that she was retired and enjoyed seeing the natural world change around her as the seasons went by. The cicadas were out this year and that too was a little treat for Jan. 

“I love the sound of cicadas,” said Jan.

“FRT-FRT-FRT-FRT-FRT-FRT”

“Whaaaaa…..?????” said Jan. 

She turned to her right where the sound came from. 

“FRT-FRT-FRT-FRT-FRT”

There at the base of a tree there appeared to be a little boy leaning against its trunk, arms down at his side. Jan took a step closer. Then another.

“Hello?” said Jan.

The shape didn’t move. It looked exactly like a boy but covered in old plastic wrap or something. Jan came even closer.

“…Oh my god. Timmy….Timmy??!”

“FRT-FRT-FRT-FRT-FRT”

It scampered away with blinding speed. Jan fell back in shock and let out a weird scream before getting to her feet and running awkwardly out of the woods, onto the path, and back through her front door. Walks were never the same. 

Jan shared her experience with her neighbors and eventually word got around town. There had been a handful of sightings to Jan’s surprise. But after that first summer, that was it. No more sightings of the weird golden bug kid thing. People thought they were losing their minds. They’d say things like “ummm am I going crazy” and “what the hell is going on!” And they would’ve kept asking themselves the same question, but seventeen years later, again he appeared. And so on and so on for eternity.