Waiting

As a child I always
was scared of crickets. We
would go often to some park or another — London’s full of them — and, keen as I was, there was always a reticence. They lurked in tall grasses, waiting out of sight. The sound was the worst of it. This constant droning, sourceless and too close. Summer was always a haunted season, something always there waiting behind the light. I look back now at that scared child, that fear kept in, let go of my own.