A Frog’s Musings
by Anna Newcomb
It is very disconcerting to be a frog, to be seen as prey by an enormous tabby cat, to have to use all your wits and leap onto an old beaten-up Buick to escape.
It’s the end of the day. The sun is setting and the grass sways in the sunshine. The Buick is lovely and warm from the sun’s rays.
All is quiet, a soft breeze is blowing, and the birds are singing. Suddenly, a thundering roar, and vibrations start to shake the whole car. It begins to move. The once soft air is hard now, and cold.
It’s harder to hang on to the car because of the pollen gathered on it. The car turns once, twice, three times. Not only is the engine rattling you around, but the car itself bucks and moves.
You decide it’s time to leave, a perfectly logical decision on your part. Like a good frog, you take a flying leap forward and the whole world is swept alongside you and the wind takes hold of you. Unfortunately, you are not a bird. It’s not fair that you have no experience with the rushing wind of flight. You’re not meant to be self-sustainingly aerodynamic. You get thrown onto the glass of the car, hard. The air is knocked out of you, and you’re left bewildered at the state of affairs and the new assumption that you should live your life like a bird.
The car slows and you catch your breath. Slowly, you decide to take a few hops off of the windshield, to the edge of the hood. But you’re too slow. The wind is getting stronger. Nevertheless, you’re determined. You can see your goal, the ground, rushing in front of you. The wind is teasingly gusty. But you build your confidence and leap with all you have, tapping into the very depths of what it means to be a frog. You fly forward, limbs outstretched, reaching, flying, and—
Smack.
The grille of the car is not a comfortable place to land. You end up on the lip below, still trapped. Your back and side ache, throbbing.
The engine roars on.
It hurts too much to risk another leap. So you settle to wait. After years of remaining still and camouflaged, you rely on the knowledge that waiting will eventually lead to safety.
The terrible roar sputters out after what seems too long of a time. The wind is soft again, and you can hear birds above you. Still, you wait. You’ve learned. The rules of gravity have changed before. So you wait as the darkness falls, the moon starts to rise, and fireflies wink above you.
You wait, barely moving, until you hear a soft croaking of another frog. It comes from the shadows under the bright azaleas. You stir. An empathetic fellow, who understands that neither of you were meant to fly. The bruises on your body throb as you move. You take a deep breath, and another, and another.
You leap. And this time, you’re not expected to be a bird. Aerodynamics and gravity are properly situated once again. Quickly you hop. Hop to cover. Hop to rest. You join your kin and breathe. It may be disconcerting to be a frog some days, but it’s worse to be called on to be a bird.
Anna Newcomb is a graduate of Belhaven University with a BFA in Art and a Creative Writing minor. A collector of stories and aficionado of airports and travel, she tries to capture her experiences in both image and word.