There’s not much to do when you’re working the graveyard shift at Tech Support, so I just spent 15 minutes walking around outside. I do that a lot, just to escape the sterile, filtered-air atmosphere of the office.
Any way, I round the corner of the building, headed towards the street, and there are about 20 crickets climbing on the curb and the wall of the next building. “That’s interesting,” I think. I watch them for 30 seconds or so, but quickly become bored. That’s natural; crickets aren’t really that interesting. I walk a little further, and get to the corner of the next building, and there are a good hundred or two all over the building and the lamppost next to it.
If you’re from Texas (maybe other places), you’ll recognize immediately my description here. Imagine a giant concrete coffee-can, about 3 feet high, with an industrial-grade lamppost bolted to the top of it. Giant nuclear-white arc light at the top, 20 feet over your head.
They’re like a living carpet covering the concrete, shimmering black like an oil slick, moving just enough to evoke memories of the “snake pit” in Raiders of the Lost Ark. I have to wonder what they’re all doing on that lamp post, and on the corner of the building. Maybe it’s because it’s a fairly cool night, and they’re trying to keep warm, since the elevated concrete probably holds heat better than the ground. Maybe it’s the light that’s drawing them near; the wall about 10 feet down is darkened, and there aren’t any crickets crawling on it (that I can see). As I walk the hundred yards or so down to the next corner, I pass two other lampposts, each with its accompanying black jacket, scintillating in the light (well, scintillating as much as a bunch of crickets can).
And then I’m rounding the last corner, working my way back to the door of the office I work in. The crickets are strangely absent here, even though there are many lights on the walls that I pass. I can still hear their chirping in the distance, though.
And then there’s a raccoon, walking along the parking lot about 20 yards away, just before I go back into the office. It’s strange seeing snippets of nature like that, here in this office complex that is so much like an extension of the concrete jungle of downtown Austin.
