The Atlantic
Cicadas Know How to End a Multiyear Lockdown
Billions of bugs are about to burst out of the ground to begin the mass gathering of a lifetime. It’s hard not to feel jealous.
Grant Heilman / Alamy
A lot can change in 17 years. The last time the cicadas were here, the virus behind the SARS outbreak had finally retreated. George W. Bush was campaigning for his second presidential term, and Myspace had commenced its meteoric rise. Tobey Maguire was still the reigning Spider-Man. The year was 2004, and a roaring mass of red-eyed, black-bodied insects had just mated and died and left behind billions of baby bugs, heirs of the hallowed Brood X, to burrow into the soil for a lonely stint underground.