Cricket love

At that moment, my hair stood on end, and my whole body was cold...

When I was in elementary school, there was a time when I was very fond of catching crickets. During the long summer vacation, without a playmate, I searched for this aggressive little creature in the grasslands of Kunming Army Academy. Often, I stood in the middle of the grass with bated breath, looking forward to the ecstatic call. After dealing with them for a long time, I could even imitate the call of crickets vividly. The most wonderful time, an angry cricket was attracted by my voice and jumped out of the grass to see that it was about to compete with me.

Then something happened that completely changed my view of crickets, so that I no longer dared to look at them as playthings. It went like this: In order to keep the crickets fighting, I caught a female cricket for my love general. This is what an old bug told me. I did this after a bloody battle, hoping that my love would stay strong. However, I forgot about the two of them because of other things. There is always something new in the world of children, and it is easy to forget many things.

Three days later, I remembered that the two of them hadn't eaten in a long time. I hurriedly opened the small box to see if they were still alive. The moment I opened the box and saw the scene inside, my hair stood on end and my whole body was cold. In the years since, I have never been so frightened or so terrified again.

My love general is only half of his body left, but he is still crawling in the box. Seeing me open the box, he raised his dark whiskers and looked at me coldly with a pair of dark compound eyes, not knowing whether he was mocking or sneering, while his girlfriend paced on the side with a bulging belly. I suppressed the desire to vomit and observed my love general carefully. The rest of his body was covered with tooth marks, and the bottom of the box was covered with very small black fragments of wings. Obviously, in three days, half of his body was eaten by his girlfriend in small bites, and he was only half left, but he was still alive!

I've heard that after praying mantises and scorpions mate, males are eaten by females. I didn't know that crickets do the same, and in such a tragic way. Other insects usually start from scratch and end each other's pain in the shortest possible time, but my cricket friend let his girlfriend eat him alive for three days!

Come to think of it, the cricket was voluntary, because I know how powerful his big teeth are, and the female cricket's mouthparts are so small that she can hardly do him any harm. As long as my love will be willing, he can bite his girlfriend to death in one bite, and keep her body for a long time. But he did not, but was willingly eaten. During these dark three days, he endured the pain very soberly. I think his girlfriend also loved him very much, and every part of him that was bitten was carefully eaten up, leaving no remnants of his body.

I put them in the grass and started clutching my hair and screaming. The fear, pain, shaking mood made me almost unable to stop. That was the first time I saw the power of love, if crickets have love too. To love someone is to leave the hope of survival to the other person in a dark environment, and at the same time try to live as much as possible, not to let your lover feel lonely, and to spend one more minute with her in the dark.

Years have passed, I have had love, and I have seen more love. When I see the so-called lingering love, when I see those romantic crying words, I can't be moved. Because I can't be sure if those are games or really great love, and the really great love I have seen with my cricket friends.

Since then, I have never imprisoned or played with crickets again. As soon as I see them, I think of their love. A love more human and greater than human beings.