Beneath the Summer Stars

In Texas, there is a kind of grasshopper that makes an almost hissing sound, which you hear in the late summer. You could hear them that evening in the dark trees above us, and the German girl asked me, "What is making that sound?"

I told her, "Rattlesnakes. Texas Tree Rattlers."

She paused and then said, "I don't think you are telling me the truth."

That's how it went those night, with the summer stars passing through the branches above us. But then we all got real jobs and moved away. It was just over. There was no going back.