Cicada

The light-blue Holden Camira rumbles down the gum-tree streets on this Melbourne evening, late in January. Inside, embraced in the back-seat Selene dozes.

The night is warm, the Camira’s windows are open wide, the dry wind is whipping Selene’s hair across her face. From the back seat she listens to the quiet mumbles between her parents, the purring of the steady motor, the quick clunking of Serkan changing the gears, the Camira’s radio wheezing Fleetwood Mac, when the rain washes you clean, you’ll know, you’ll know.

The clicking of the, cli-click, indicator is a, cli-click, comforting sound to, cli-click, Selene. Like Morse code through the night, it sends her a message: You’re almost home. The Camira turns and hums up her street, slowing to a high-pitched whine, the engine in a low gear. Entering the driveway, the Camira’s tyres rumble over gravel, behind her eyelids Selene sees the car as a buzzing insect. The metallic-wrench of the hand-brake wipes away the insect, like an eraser across a white board.

Selene peers through her heavy lids, the white light above the front door makes the dry world look like the Moon landing pictures she’d seen at school.

Turning her sleep-heavy head back to the front seat she watches as first Serkan’s and then Irem’s seatbelts zip back. Irem reaches out and lightly squeezes Serkan’s hand where it rests on the gear-stick, she throws open her passenger side door, and a wall of screeching cicadas greets them: Welcome home.

Selene remembers the crunchy, fat shell she had found in the brown grass last week.

“Cicada,” Serkan had told her in his soft, gruff voice, cupping the empty thing gently in his hand. “He is quiet when the sun goes down.”

Cicada, she loved the sound of it, she rolled it around her mouth like a boiled lolly. Cicada.

“Is he dead?” She had asked her father.

“No, this is his dirty clothes,” he winked at her.

Thud! Irem’s door dulls the cicadas’ symphony, as though their conductor has dropped the dynamic drastically. Serkan turns in his seat, his eyes smiling through their weariness.

“Home, güzelim.”

Selene smiles and closes her eyes. Thud! Serkan’s rhythmic steps move towards the back of the car. Selene feels herself grow heavier and heavier, as from the boot of the Camira comes the muted voices of her parents, the rustling of plastic bags filled with containers of pilaf and dolma, the shuffle of her mother’s hands chasing loose lemons around the boot.

Selene’s door opens, and her world erupts in the cicadas’ abrasive song. Looking through her lashes she sees Irem’s soft silhouette against the porch light. Her fingers click Selene out of her complex seatbelt, then pick her up from the armpits.

“Oof,” she exhales, Selene is getting heavy.

Irem sashay’s the door closed with her hip, leaving a round, clean mark in the dust on the door. Selene nestles her head into her mother’s neck, inhaling her sweet, clean smell mixed with the saltiness of sweat.

The family walks to the front door, the brown grass crackling underfoot. Serkan fumbles with his keys, scraping them against the wood of the door as he searches for the lock. The door finally creaks open and he waves Irem through, before following, his hands full with plastic bags and containers.

Irem’s soft feet patter across the house, her hands clasped below her daughter’s bottom, she relishes the weight against her chest. She sidesteps around Selene’s half open door, nudging a doll out of the way with the side of her foot, Irem places Selene into her bed. She lifts her daughter’s tired arms and pulls her burgundy dress over her head, unbuckles her shoes, slips off her socks. Irem retrieves Selene’s nightie from her chest of drawers, and gently wriggles it over her head.

As she cover’s the little girl she brushes her forehead with her lips. Selene smiles without opening her eyes, and burrows into her pillow. For a moment Irem just stands there. For a moment she closes her eyes. For a moment she just listens to her daughter’s deep breaths, and the shriek of the cicadas outside.

Serkan opens the windows in the lounge letting out the heavy, hot air that has accumulated through the day, letting in the southerly winds, that aren’t much cooler but are at least fresh. He puts on the same Fleetwood Mac album from the car, low. He stands at the window embraced by the cloying smell of hot gum leaves.