Cricket Song

Snuggling down in my little rondavel, exhausted from a long day of flying in nearby South Sudan, I was ready for a peaceful night’s sleep. As the only guest in my motel due to the Covid-19 scare, I anticipated a quiet snooze. Maybe I should stop right there and back up to the word ‘motel’, because for you, that might conjure up images of a cozy little lodging spot located along some lonely highway. Really, it’s more like a camp than a motel, located in a northern Kenyan town. Each room is its own cylindrical structure, much like a grain bin, but much nicer with a thatched roof and plaster walls. Each room provides a firm double bed with mosquito netting, a TV that might work (but what are you going to watch, really?), a cold water shower, and some of the rooms, as a bonus, even include a shower curtain. But what is absolutely delightful about each room is the air conditioning. Oh, to sleep with air conditioning in this Vegas heat is simply delightful. While the town has been out of electricity for the last 3 weeks, this motel has a generator that runs at night bringing delicious refreshment to one’s sleep.

While preparing my bed for that refreshing rest, my dreary eyes started seeing movement around the edges of my circular walls. I spied crickets moving about, trying not to be noticed as they overran my room. Unfortunately, it wasn’t one cricket or two crickets, but many, many crickets. Pulling back the mosquito netting, I hesitantly placed my feet on the floor. For some reason I don’t like it when my feet first hit the floor. Maybe it’s from a bad movie or watching Animal Planet or something, but I think about a snake being under the bed giving me a strike on the ankle as I climb out. But of course, that wouldn’t happen since I always shine the flashlight under the bed before calling it a night. 

Well, I placed those two feet on the floor and grabbed my nearby boot as it was time to settle things with these unwanted visitors. I smacked one cricket with a loud clap that rang throughout the quiet camp, and then I smacked another with the same ferocity. In this part of the country the sound of a boot smacking the floor is immediately recognizable as everyone knows this means a bug, spider, or maybe something worse, has been squashed. Again, the camp grew silent and I drew aim at yet another cricket quickly scurrying by. 

Just about then, a small voice spoke up amongst the crickets. I guess he was the designated cricket leader, or the wisest, or maybe just the one who had had enough of my boot’s fury. He said, “Look, you’ve killed a couple of us already and all we’re trying to do is get to a place of shelter. The rainy season is upon us and we’re going to drown if another hard rain comes tonight. There’s no way that you can kill all of us, so why don’t you relax, put that boot down and hop back into bed. We’re just going to sit here and be crickets and we might even sing you a lullaby as you sleep, if you’re really nice.”

Looking around the room, I said to myself, “Self, this cricket is actually speaking some wisdom. There is no way you can kill them all. They will just keep coming in from under that door or wherever they are scurrying from. Maybe this cricket is making some good sense.”

So, setting down my boot, I bid the crickets a very good night. They continued playing about, doing whatever crickets do in the night. I heard them once, for just a brief moment, singing their beautiful cricket song. Before I knew it though, my alarm reminded me it was time to head to work and on came the light. The crickets didn’t scurry away, as expected with the florescent intrusion shining down on them. Instead, they welcomed me to the morning, all of them looking up at me, their newest bunkmate. I even found one snuggled in the instrument of my wrath as I did my customary boot check for any sort of crawly thing. You never know what danger might lurk out there. But this morning there was no danger, just one small cricket, snuggling down and enjoying the smell of my boot. I gently scooped him out of my boot and carried on with my day.

As a final gesture of good will, the crickets did one last amazing thing for me that day. After returning to my home, far, far away in Nairobi, I opened my clothes bag to find one lonely cricket burrowed amongst my dirty socks. No doubt, he had been dispatched as my personal envoy from the orchestra of crickets; a private escort sent from the head cricket himself, to make sure I returned safely home. Thanking him, I carried him gently to the window and bid this new cricket friend farewell.

I’m sure glad I listened to that wise ole cricket. I had the best night of sleep listening to the orchestra of crickets sing.