My name is Bob, but this story isn’t about me, it’s about my friend Carlos Cicada. The first cool thing you notice about Carlos is that not only is his last name Cicada, but he is a cicada. A cicada is an insect or, as Carlos would say with a chuckle “I’m a bug”. Maybe you have heard cicadas singing in your neighborhood when it is very hot. They sit in trees and sing a lovely song when the temperature goes up and the humidity is very high.

Carlos travels from Mexico to Montreal during the summer.

“Some of us like to stay in places where it is hot all the time but I prefer to work in places that have four different seasons and need to invite cicadas from other places during the summer,” explains Carlos. “Every year when my two kids, Chico and Chica finish school, my lovely wife Consuela packs up the family and we go to the airport to find a plane heading to Montreal.”

I wondered why an insect that can fly would take a plane.

“Well Bob, it is a very long flight from Mexico to Canada, so we prefer to take an airplane rather than fly ourselves even if we have wings. Our luggage would weigh us down and the kids’ backpacks can be pretty heavy with all their stuff” says Carlos with his charming Mexican accent. “We find a nice bag with an outside pocket and settle in for the trip. We have to make sure we will be in the cabin with the passengers where it is warm and not in the cargo hold where it is too cool. But it must also not get too hot or I will start singing and we will be in big trouble – imagine the sound of a cicada singing in the middle of a flight!”

The first time I met Carlos was a few summers ago when he showed up on my kitchen window screen. I had never seen a cicada that close before and was looking closely at the two big eyes and the very thin wings and couldn’t help but notice he was wearing a small Panama hat when all of a sudden he spoke to me.

“Hola Senor, I am Carlos Cicada and I have come to sing in your tree this summer, and what is your name?” he said very politely.

I told him my name is Bob and he replied “Ah yes, the nickname of a person named Roberto I believe. I think, with your permission, I will call you Roberto.” But he usually calls me Señor or “my friend”.