After dinner, David and Myra went down to the basement room to watch a live football (American-style) match between their university and a tough opponent. After a while, Myra got bored and went back upstairs to her own bedroom from high-school days. David opened the fridge in mini-bar, found a six-pack of his favorite beer, finished three pints while watching the game, and fell asleep on the sofa. Several hours later, he woke up listening to a chirping chorus. From the glow of TV-screen, he noticed several adult crickets jumping around on the carpet. “Must be their mating season, thus coming out from dark and wet basement corners,” thought David. He fell asleep again, listening to their love-song.
Next week, the American State Department reported that the embassy personnel in a formerly-antagonistic, now-friendly country were getting sick with some mysterious neurological ailments. Various tests and scans couldn’t pinpoint any culprit, so they were ordered to come back home. This was also the time when Rahul, Myra’s younger brother would come home for a week’s vacation. He was an officer in US Navy, being stationed in an aircraft carrier. He turned the basement room to his living quarter, hanging out with his former high-school friends, watching live sports on TV and drinking a few pints in between. Then, the time came for him to report to his next assignment.
The very next day, the New York Times would report that the US scientists had determined that a continuous high decibel sound being the factor for neurological disturbances to those embassy personnel. And this sound was not an internal sabotage, but the love song of a specific breed of crickets, unique to this particular tropical country. Mr. Sen suddenly realized that he no longer heard the chirping of the crickets from his basement room after Rahul’s departure (he was well aware of the phenomenon).
Two weeks later, from an internet search, Mr. Sen learned that his son’s warship just sailed through the Strait of Hormuz, near Iran. Last few years, there were always reports of tense conflict between these two unfriendly nations whenever a US naval ship ventured into that strait. But, no such incident was reported this year.
Mr. Sen realized that the love song continuously sent by those love-torn crickets that his son carried back from home, and thus making enemy sick, saved the world from another international catastrophe.