Summer days are hot. It feels as if I am dreaming, walking on a dazzling summer day on the street. People are talking and laughing noisily. When I am jolted out of my reverie, they might all be gone.

I heard cicada songs the other day in the schoolyard. It was quiet because it was the weekend. I enjoyed the quiet. No one would bother me and I could be lost in my own world. It was on the quiet day that I heard the cicada tune.

Instantly its singing evoked my memory of what I did to a cicada when I was a child. At that time, I did not like taking a nap after lunch. But my mother insisted I do it. She napped every day.

One day after she fell asleep, I stealthily got up and played on my own. In the garden I found a cicada on a tree branch motionless. I seized it and took it prisoner by tying it up. Threatened and desperate, it tried its best to take flight. However, it could not break free because of the strings on its legs. It was interesting for me to watch the insect struggling. After some time, the cicada escaped anyway, with its legs left behind in the knot.

Today the incident is so vivid in my mind as if it had happened a moment ago. Every time I hear cicada songs, I will feel apologetic murmuring, “I should not have been so cruel to the cicada that day. It must have been a nightmare to him.”

Sadly, in no way could I have a chance to say sorry to the insect. I owe the cicada an apology.