Cricket

Every night I came back to my room late from work. It was a new job. It was a new city. No friends to hang out with, no one waiting for me except for an empty room. All I wanted was to change my clothes, get into my bed and have a good nights sleep, a nap to wear off the tiredness of my whole life, a peaceful nap to forget everything for a few hours. Forget the new job, forget the new city, forget the emptiness of my room and forget the emptiness of my life. You know that feeling you get for a few moments after you wake up by yourself from a satisfying sleep, few moments when you are not sure if you are still dreaming, when you are not sure where you are, when the dream you were having, having been left unfinished is just starting to slip out of your memory leaving you on your bed just trying to catch some fleeing details. I wanted that. 

But it seemed I couldn't even have that. As soon as I switched off the lights and lay on the bed, a cricket started chirping somewhere in the room. In an empty room with just a bed and a wardrobe, the sound echoed and seemed to come from everywhere, so loud and so irritating. I got up and switched on the light. The cricket stopped chirping. But I couldn't sleep with the lights on. I had to find that cricket and either kill it or drive it away. I tried looking under the bed and then contemplated moving the bed and the wardrobe to look for the source of my irritation but then decided that's too much of an effort. I switched off the light and hoped the cricket would have moved out on its own or wouldn't continue with its serenade until I had gone to sleep. But as soon as I lay down, the sound started again. I couldn't sleep for the whole night. I kept tossing and turning on the bed, my thoughts drifting from one memory of another life to another memory of one life, all this while listening to the cricket chirping its heart away. 

This repeated the next night and the night after that. I couldn't focus on anything at work too. Then after two days, I bought an eye mask. I thought that it was the perfect solution to all my problems. Now I could sleep with the lights on. So I returned from the office that night, looking forward to finally getting a peaceful sleep. I kept the lights on, lay on the bed and put on the eye mask. Now I would sleep. Or not. The lights were on, the cricket was silent, I was comfortable, yet I couldn't sleep. For almost two hours, I kept trying to find any semblance of slumber but sleep evaded me. I had been blaming the cricket all this while for my insomnia but now there was no one to blame except for my own restless mind. I took off the eye mask and switched off the lights. As I expected, the little uninvited guest in my room began his daily program of endless singing. I just lay listening to the cricket's chirping. The sound filled the empty room. Just a bed, a wardrobe, me and the cricket. And then it happened. I didn't even realize it until I woke up in the morning. I had slept. I had a satisfying sleep. I switched on the lights. The cricket still continued chirping. I kicked the wardrobe to let the insect know I was awake and it was morning and it stopped.

I don't know how or when this became our routine, mine and my little friend's who I hadn't even seen till now, who was hiding somewhere in my room, but I considered it a friend now. Every night when I returned to my room and went to bed to sleep, it would start chirping and then in the morning when I woke up, I switched on the lights and kicked the wardrobe or the bed to let the cricket know that it's morning, it would stop. I started sleeping soundly to the sound of its chirping. My irritation was replaced with satisfaction. The white noise became soothing. That insect became a part of my daily routine.

This routine continued for some time. Then one night I switched off the lights and went to bed and lay expecting the cricket to start chirping. It didn't. Ten minutes passed, twenty minutes, half an hour passed. It was strange. It didn't take this long. I lay awake all night waiting for its sound but it didn't chirp all night.

This happened again the next night. I lay down on the bed after switching off the lights and the cricket didn't start chirping. I kept wondering why. How would I sleep now? I had become so habitual to the sound. It used to distract me from the emptiness of my room. The silence was hurting me now. I suddenly felt lonely. What happened to that cricket? Did it go away? Or did it die? What is the average lifespan of a cricket? I googled 'cricket insect'. I read about crickets. But instead of reading about the average lifespan of a cricket, I found something more interesting. Turns out, the sound that the cricket makes is not just to irritate humans, the male cricket chirps to attract the female. So my little friend was just like me. A lonely guy. It could have gone away or just died but I chose to believe that it found a companion and that's the reason it stopped chirping. I know it sounds silly but that's the belief that made me sleep that night. And the nights after that. The belief that maybe someday I'll also not be lonely anymore, just like that cricket.