On
the thirteenth day of the seventeen year cycle of the deafening
cicadas, Hope freaked out. Buggered by bugs--in the fireplace flu,
the sugar bowl, between the sheets, in the folds of her rivulet
curls. On the thirteenth day, which to Hope seemed like thirteen
years, she makes a run for it, a sprint to the car parked in the
drive and a means to somewhere else, anywhere else, childfren or
no children. Husband or no husband. Freedom from the devil cidadas,
the constant cacophany of sex-starved prehistorics freed from a
seventeen year, sub-grade hibernation that has her running, dashing
for the Garden Gate, the new Prowell Gate, the child-proof Gate,
the car just feet away, just beyond the locked gate, waiting,
waiting to take her from Park Ridge, from the devil cicadas.
But the gate. The damned gate.
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