The Cicada

Incoming Editorial Team·Verified September 25, 2026

Caterina and Yahya have been friends since school. She comes from Cengio, a small town in the Ligurian hinterland, where her father, her grandfather, and generations of her family were born. He comes from Morocco, from a small mountain village near Marrakech. They spend their afternoons filming the world around them: forests and rivers, abandoned houses, and above all the ruins of the factory — the poison industry that once shaped the life of the entire area, and that not one here has forgotten. One day, deep in the woods, they stumble upon a secluded farmhouse. A very old man lives there, alone. Drawn by curiosity, they return again and again, until one afternoon he finally invites them inside.