Locusts on My Windshield

Written and Illustrated by Jennifer Owings Dewey

One summer day I was driving alone across northern Colorado. I traveled a two-lane highway that cut through rich farm country. Corn and wheat fields lined the road for miles and miles.

A tractor-trailer truck came up fast behind me and swung by. A few seconds later a fat brown insect smacked against my windshield with such force that it left a greasy smear.

Before long, the windshield was spotted with dozens of casualties, all the same size, shape, and color as the first.

I slowed the car and kept both hands on the wheel. It was a hot day, and all the windows were rolled down. Insects like the ones hitting the windshield were getting blown in. They began to pile up on the seats and dashboard. I saw that they were locusts, a type of grasshopper.

Ahead of me, something that looked like clouds of brown smoke rose up from under the truck. It was not smoke; it was locusts.

My car’s engine began to run roughly and make odd noises. I brought the car to a stop at the side of the road. I also wanted to see the locusts close up, so I climbed out.

In an instant I was surrounded by them. They clung to my clothing and got caught in my hair. They swarmed over the car and under it. I looked for the truck. It had vanished. I envied the driver his big rig. It had passed through the swarm.

The hissing, clicking clamor of locusts on the move filled my head. The insects were a noisy throng, a throbbing brown river of life as wide as the highway. Countless numbers rose into the air on stubby wings while others hopped, crept, crawled, or staggered over the ground in layers ten inches deep.

I jumped into the car, my body covered with locusts. I rolled up the windows, trying to ignore the locusts perched everywhere, including the steering wheel. To latch my seat belt I had to push a fistful of locusts off the buckle.

I drove forward with my eyes half-shut, listening to the crunch of locusts under the tires. The struggle to keep calm was nearly too much for me. I pictured being eaten alive by the hoard of insects, bite by raw bite, even though I knew that locusts eat wheat and corn, not humans.

Five miles later I came to a small town and pulled into the first gas station I saw. The car engine was beginning to sputter, and I wanted to sweep my unwanted passengers out and away.

“You have locusts in your engine,” the mechanic told me. “It will take me an hour, at least, to clean up this mess.”

I crossed the road to wait in a coffee shop. I ordered a lemonade, still aware of the sensation of locusts crawling on my skin.

“Did you come through that swarm?” the waitress asked.

“Yes,” I said. “It was horrible. My engine is covered with locusts.”

“You’re lucky,” said a man at a nearby table. “We’re seeing our crops disappear into the bellies of those insects. They cut a path right through the best farmland in the valley, a stretch five miles long and half a mile wide.”

“Amazing,” I said. “I’d only read about locust swarms. I’d never seen one. Do you know what gets them going?”

“Hunger,” answered a second man. “After a good rainy season unusual numbers hatch from eggs in the ground. They eat up everything in their own neigh-borhood and have to march across the land to find more food.”

“That’s a fact,” the first man said. “Last year was good and wet. The more rain we get, the greater the chances for a swarm of locusts with empty stomachs.”

“It makes you respect nature,” the waitress said, a half-smile on her face.

“It makes me feel creepy,” I said. “But you’re right. Sometimes we forget what nature is about. We get comfortable and think everything will be the same way forever. Then look what happens.”

It took two hours for the mechanic to clean my car. I ordered a hamburger and listened to the conversation of local people. I overheard comments about swarms of insects in Biblical times, destructive enough to leave famine in their wake.

I was paying my bill when I heard what was probably the wisest comment of all. It came from an old farmer. He had a grizzly-white beard, and he wore overalls. His cotton shirt was so faded that I knew it had been through a hundred washings.

“You plant in the spring,” he said. “You feed your family, and maybe a few others, and some years you feed those grasshoppers. That’s the way it has always been. Some parts of the world have earthquakes; others have floods. We have swarms of locusts.”

I drove out of town, thinking about the old man’s words. I stopped once more to get another look at the insects with the legendary appetites.

The last of the swarm was making its way over the ground, twitching, hopping, and chewing. I knelt down and touched the crusty back of a locust.

The insect took no notice. My fingertips were not significant enough to slow down its jaws. It was I who felt the touch, and the effect it had was to lessen my fear. I knew what the old man meant when he spoke of accepting natural disasters. The swarm had cast a spell on me, and now the spell was broken.