frogstarter-blog

[frogstarter-blog]

Where Am I?

Joe woke up in a muddy mire near a small pond teeming with other critters. Joe was not a human but he thought like a human, or so he thought. He was clothed in frog skin and lived among frogs but was not one of them. He was different and knew he was different. The other frogs just stared into space with a vacuous, glazed-over look that revealed an absence of thought. Joe could think in several languages and he understood many abstract concepts. When he tried communicating with the other frogs, only inane frog noises came out of his mouth. Joe tried communicating in Morse code at one point, using his eyelids to generate the message, but the other frogs were unresponsive; they just stared into space like zombies. They were just frogs. It was curious that, for all of Joe's intellect, he was lacking in memory. Although he had a complete photographic memory and could recall in complete detail every event of the previous day, beyond that he only had vague sensations. Every morning when Joe woke up he did his morning routine of observing other frogs, attempting in vain to communicate with them, giving up at the end of the day, eating some disgusting bugs and falling asleep. He did this every day for the next 10 years.

Joe woke up and found himself on a dried out pond bed. Looking around he saw a bleak scene of dead frogs, dead fish, and dead turtles; everything was dead including the trees and vegetation. Joe wondered how long it had been this way but he could not remember. He decided to hop around and try to find anything living. Although, it was hopeless to communicate with others, he still enjoyed having them around. Joe was also very hungry and, as disgusting as he found it, needed to find some bugs to eat. Joe hopped around for a while longer in search of food but eventually gave up. When the sun went down he fell asleep only to wake up the next day and go through the exact same routine. Joe did this every day for the next 100 years.

Joe woke up and found himself on a desiccated landscape infused with large cracks. Although Joe was quite alert he was only capable of sensing his right leg move a little bit away from his body only to have it snap back to its original position. Then it moved again, and again, a process that he had no control over. His ears were still working because he could hear voices of three boys approaching. When they were in visual range one of the ragamuffins said, "Look, it's an old FrogBot!”, then all three of them excitedly ran to Joe, but upon discovering that he was broken and unable to hop, one of the boys grabbed a large rock and started hitting Joe repeatedly until Joe was no longer a unit but was made non-contiguous over several yards of sere earth. Fortunately, the core of Joe was a self-contained microprocessor chip no larger than a fingernail. Unfortunately, the Joe chip toppled into a crevice, and plunged into a tenebrous void. Joe fell for the next 10 seconds.

Joe woke up and saw nothing for there was nothing to see. He could not move for he had nothing to move. He could not hear for he had nothing to hear with. It was a cruel joke that Joe was still hungry, because there was no food available and he had neither mouth nor stomach. Joe was a human now, because no sense or memory told him otherwise. Joe thought because that’s all he could do. He wondered about things; wondered where he was mostly, but also dreamed about future possibilities, imagined a world full of joy and happiness, then he fell asleep only to wake up the next day and, due to having no new stimuli, had the exact same thoughts as the previous day. This happened every day for the next 1000 years.

Joe woke up in a world of nothing. He could neither see, nor move, nor hear, nor feel. He simply existed, and he was still hungry. He was so very hungry and couldn’t understand why he had no mouth. Then there was a vibration and the earth shifted a little bit and Joe shifted with it. Joe sensed it; knew that his orientation had changed just enough to kick him out of his 1000 year loop of thinking the same thoughts. Joe was excited; he knew something had changed. He couldn't wait to see what new thoughts and ideas would cascade through his mind. He hadn’t felt this happy and excited for 1000 years. Then the earth shifted a little bit more and Joe cracked and died.

[frogstarter-blog]

It Peed On Me

The frog stared. It didn’t know what else to do. I just stared at the wall.

“Come look at my pet frog”, the girl said to her brother. “I found it in our back yard. It was hopping next to the house and I caught it. Now it’s on my desk”.

The frog wasn’t frightened, nor was it hungry, it just didn’t know what to do so it stared at the wall. Then it peed on the desk. It just peed wherever the hell it wanted. It was just a frog and then it stared at the wall again.

“Come look at my pet frog you Idiot!” the girl said again to her brother. The brother came into his sister’s bedroom. “What frog?” he said.

“There, on my desk," the sister pointed at the frog. The brother looked at the desk. “Oh, that is so gross. It peed all over your desk!” The boy picked up the frog and threw it at his sister. It missed and bounced off of the wall, leaving a pee print on the wall. The frog was on the carpet now and peed a little bit more. It was dazed but otherwise uninjured. It hopped a couple of times then peed some more.

“Why did you throw my pet frog at me? You’re such an idiot”. The girl picked up the frog and brought it back to her room but it peed all over her and she screamed then dropped it on the carpet. “Ahhh, that is so gross. Why do frogs pee?”. “They also poop” her brother informed her. “Oh, get it out of here. That is so disgusting”. The brother picked up the frog and held it far away from him in case it peed some more, which it did. He took it to the back yard and then throw it as far as he could into the neighbors back yard.

The frog landed in the middle of the neighbors yard and rolled a couple of times but ended up on its feet. It was still alive. After a long time it tried to hop but one of its legs wasn’t working properly and it ended up on its back. The frogs’ world had been turned upside but it didn't seem to care. It just stared at the side of the neighbors house. It didn’t know what else to do.

Later that morning a dog was let outside to go poop. As the dog sniffed around the yard for the perfect place to poop it came across the frog, still on its back. The dog sniffed the frog and pushed it a few times with his nose to let the frog know he wanted to play. One of the shoves turned the frog over and the frog managed to crawl a little bit to the delight of the dog. The dog was excited about his new playmate but had to go poop first. Before leaving the dog lifted his leg and gave the frog a couple of squirts, then he continued his search for the perfect spot. Without really trying the frog managed to crawl to safety on the other side of the fence.

The frog stared at the fence then was staring at the dogs face on the other side of the fence. The dog reached his paws thru the fence to paw the frog back to his side. He managed to just touch the frog but could not get a firm hold. He turned the frog slightly, then the frog crawled a little bit more and was forever outside of the dog's realm.

The frog was on the grass strip next to the alley. It was staring at the trash can because it didn’t know what else to do. Then it peed.

[frogstarter-blog]

The Last Squish

For hundreds of years the huge boulder held its position overlooking the valley. It had overseen the rise and fall of the Indian empire along with a valley awash in buffalo. It looked on as the cowboy pushed westward, followed by the railroad and then highway. The vigilant boulder weathered the floods, the rains, the winds, the rattling of the ground from time to time. Its base weaken over time but the mighty rock stood strong and proud. Today it was sentry to a farm, a road, a distant pond, a nearby town and school, and eyed some of the town's citizens with concern. One such citizen was John...

John liked to step on things. He tried to do this in private because he thought it was an unusual thing to enjoy, but he couldn't help himself. He couldn't understand his penchant to squish, but gave in to the urge every time. As a child, when he walked to school he had a compulsion to step on every alternate groove on the sidewalk to the beat of whatever song was playing in his head. But when he saw a bug, that really threw him off his rhythm since they were not as evenly spaced as the sidewalk grooves. Plus, he had to lift his knee up a little higher to get a satisfactory squish. For the larger bugs, like a cockroach and spider, he gave a high-pitched squeal as he stomped them. If one were to watch John as he encountered areas of higher bug density they would think he looked and sounded quite silly. John was the kind of citizen that others gave wide berth to.

As John got older he tried to squish larger critters. He once saw a medium-sized tortoise crossing a walkway at a crowded shopping plaza. With the exception of some young children, shoppers were keeping well out of the way of the tortoise to give it free passage. It was about three quarters of the way across when John spotted it. With glee in his eyes and a smile on his face he quickly ran to the tortoise, began to hyperventilate, then he jumped up high with both knees raised, and with a loud scream brought both feet crushing down dead-center on top of the tortoise's shell. Things didn't turn out as John expected. Although his feet crushed through the shell with unbridled satisfaction and splattered guts everywhere, including the faces of the young children who were watching with morbid curiosity, his feet did not find purchase on the far side of the shell. John's feet slipped out from under him and he fell onto his back squishing whatever turtle remained. A small crowd soon gathered around John and he quickly scurried away in humiliation. John returned to squishing bugs.

When John was an adult he became a licensed truck driver and that's how he earned his living. One of the perquisites to the job was the ability to squish larger critters with abandon, without ramifications, and John experienced every much the satisfaction of squishing with his big wheel as he did with his foot. He just had to rememberer to keep his windows down so he could hear the impact and resulting squish. John was now creating road-kill out of armadillos, opossums, raccoons, squirrels, and occasionally a coyote or deer. Life was good.

John's last squish came when he was driving his truck back to town late one night. He was very sleepy at the wheel. To stay awake, John had been picking out objects ahead of him to focus on — a sign, a bridge, a piece of litter — anything to keep him from falling asleep. But then he came to a long stretch of highway and was unable to find anything suitable for his attention. No sign, no bridge, no litter, nothing. His eyes blurring as sleep crawled up his spine into his consciousness. There! There it was! Hopping across the farm road on his left. John focused on the frog to keep awake. He just had to turn his steering wheel ever so slightly, just enough to ensure that the wheels of his truck and the croaking frog met with a satisfying squish. And it was done. A strange peace come over John as bliss illumed his face.

John soon fell asleep with a complacent smile on his face. It is quite amazing that the truck continued on the highway for another quarter of a mile, even making a slow turn to the right as the highway curved. Unfortunately, when the highway curved back to the left, John's truck continued its slow turn to the right and drove right off the highway and crashed into a rocky cliff. When John woke up he was dazed from the crash and quite fatally injured, but was feeling no pain at the moment. In his daze he thought he was dreaming and wondered if the steadily growing rumble sound might be his alarm. Then, for the briefest of moments, he thought he heard the beginning of a squish and the world ended.

...The huge boulder was precariously balanced on its perch. Its base had eroded over the centuries and was now so tenuous that it could give way at any moment. That moment came when John's truck crashed into the rocky cliff far below. It was only a vibration, but it seemed to grow as it travelled up the rocky cliff and magnify as it focused its energy into the crepitating neck of the vigilant head. When the brake came it was fatal and the decapitated head plunged precipitously downward gaining speed all the time until arrested by the cabin of the truck, which was instantly flattened as the driver's body was pasted onto the rocky canvas. The vigilant boulder, like John, was no more.

[frogstarter-blog]

Moving On

Bob was not a frog but he thought he was raised by frogs. He inhabited a farmhouse with a human couple but had always assumed they discovered him living among the frogs at a nearby pond when he was a baby. The frogs were his real family and the pond was where he felt most at home. He resented his parents for taking him away. Bob was twelve years old now and was unusually large for his age with a stooped back and wide-set eyes that interestingly made him look a bit froggish. He was also very stupid as you might imagine, but was gifted with an active and vivid imagination.

Bob did not have any friends since he was so very dumb and socially awkward, plus his obsession with frogs was a big turnoff to any potential friends. All he ever aspired to do was return to the pond to visit his frog family and play with his siblings and frog friends. He adored all of his little frog friends and made up names for many of them. He had to stop naming the younger frogs a while back because so many of them died or were eaten by birds. That always left him so devastated, especially when he knew them by name.

One day Bob was lying on his stomach making frog sounds while mesmerized by the pond. He imagined he was communicating with the frogs and that they understood him. When they responded he imagined them saying anything he wanted. He could carry on conversations like this for hours at a time. As the sun settled in the west he heard a bird call out from a tree overhanging the pond, so he rolled over onto his back to determine whether the bird could be a threat to the frogs. Unfortunately, Bobs' frog parents and siblings were wallowing in the mud next to him and he accidentally crushed his entire family. The crunching sound as he flattened them made him sick to his stomach. He could hear what seemed like every bone cracking, every organ rupturing, and the spewing sound of guts escaping their lacerated skin and pasting his back. He realized instantly what had happened and was in such shock and horror that he remained frozen in position for almost an hour. He recalled the flattened frog he saw when crossing the farm road on his way home from school a few days back and how he had cried over the frog remains. He was crying now. Clouds crawled into the sky as the sun dipped below the horizon creating a gloom that matched Bobs' mood.

Something changed in Bob that evening. Once his torrent of emotions ebbed away, he rose and began his long walk home. He never looked back at the grim sadness and knew he would never return. It would never be the same again, not now. It began to rain. He walked slowly back to his human home with his head hung low, utterly devastated, devoid of any more tears or emotion. He was like a zombie. For the first time ever, Bob looked beyond the frogs and imagined a life without them. He decided that evening to leave the frogs behind and move on with his life. Never again would Bob speak of frogs and his life would gradually improve over the coming years as a result. Eventually Bob would forget about the frogs and would lead a normal life.

Unknown to Bob, when he had stood up at the pond, his mother and father had remained squished to his back and didn’t slide off until he was almost home. Strangely and inscrutably, if one were to look at the frog imprints on Bob’s back, for a few seconds before the rain erased their last vestiges, a couple of smiley faces could clearly be seen where the mother and father frogs had been stuck in death.

[frogstarter-blog]

The Last Croak

A frog hopped out of the pond one day. He paused for a minute making frog noises and then continued to hop along. It was dark out. Nobody really cared about this frog and it wouldn't have matter anyway, because he was only a frog, and frogs don't get sad when no one cares about them. Sadness is an emotion and there must be certain brain structures present before emotions can be experienced. The frog just hopped along. He was a young frog, perhaps a month or two old. He had an awareness of sorts. An awareness of his environment, but he couldn't really think about things. He couldn't plan what he might want to do the next day, or who he might want to play with. Of course, frogs don't play. They just hop around and eat bugs and make a big splash when they hop into the water. He continued to hop along. A couple of hours later he reached a road. He did not know what a road was because he was a frog and frogs don't know such things. He did sense something was different. The road was still radiating some heat from earlier that day and, of course, there was no grass. But this frog had never been to the road before so didn't really know what to think about it. He just continued to hop along and just happened to be hopping to the other side of the road. That wasn't his intention to hop to the other side, it was just how the frog's path and the road happened to intersect. He continued on his way. As the frog hopped toward the other side he noticed something different. Occasionally, he observed some distant glowing lights that got brighter and brighter and then very quickly pass by with a loud noise and a gust of wind. He enjoyed this gust of wind. It made him blink his little frog eyes. This was such a new and different experience that the frog paused to feel the breeze again as those glowing lights flashed by. Possibly for the first time ever, this frog wondered about something. What were these strange lights and why did the wind blow each time the light passed. He was beginning to experience a flicker of something special. Was it joy, happiness, excitement? The frog didn't know what this feeling was inside of him, but he wanted to express himself somehow. So he made a decision; possibly the first real conscious decision ever made by a frog. When he saw the next glowing light he took a great big gulp of air, maybe the biggest gulp of air in his whole life. The light was getting brighter. The sound was getting louder. If he timed it just right he could make the most beautiful frog noise ever, right as the wind gusted. The frog opened his mouth and, right as the light started to flash by, released his .... Right at that moment a big truck ran over the frog and the frog died in an instant, never to be heard from again. And no one missed the frog, or even cared, because no one ever realized he was gone. However, the truck driver, unlike the other drivers, did noticed the frog on the highway. He turned his steering wheel ever so slightly, but just enough to ensure that the wheels of his truck and the croaking frog met on this fateful day.