the cicadas arrived long after her prayers had ended. they covered her eyes, nested in her silence, and sang for a season that no longer belonged to her. no one remembered when she had stopped waiting. perhaps it happened gradually, like dusk swallowing a field. or perhaps it happened all at once, the day she realized that some promises only survive because they are never fulfilled. still, summer refused to leave her. the vines found her shoulders. the flowers opened where her skin had begun to crack. even the wind carried the scent of warm earth and distant sunlight, as if the world insisted on treating her like something still alive. the cicadas understood better. they gathered around her not as mourners, but as witnesses. they knew she was no longer waiting for anyone. no god. no lover. no miracle. only the slow passage of another borrowed season. and yet the flowers kept blooming. blue and fragile against the dark. as if beauty itself could not accept her absence. as if summer had forgotten she was already gone.