Last Day on Earth

by Eric Puchner

We were all relieved when the cicadas began to disappear. They dripped from the trees like snow and carpeted the sidewalks. Suddenly we could hear birds singing again. We could hear the scrape of our own shoes. We could hear the hum of the electrical wires festooning our street. We could hear the sprinklers chk-chk-chking on the lawns, the shrieks and splashes of swimming pools, the kurraaang of basketballs missing their baskets. We could hear snatches of music drifting on the breeze. We could hear the planes buzzing overhead and the bees buzzing in the flowers. We talked normally, without shouting, and our voices seemed like new and powerful instruments. For a day or two, we listened to whatever anyone had to say. My dad whispered in my mother’s ear at dinner, and it was like I could hear the corny things he was saying, so badly did I want them to be true. Out with you, my mother said to us, giggling, No kids allowed, and we climbed the trees and walked barefoot in the grass, and it seemed like we might stay outside forever.