By Andrea Chesman

A slow warmth seeps through his body. Is there anything more satisfying than awakening from a long winter’s sleep? His thoughts drift lazily. The scent of lilies, insistent, floral. And the cry of the loons, eerie and frightening. Sun on the top of his head. His heart rate speeds up; his discomfort is almost unbearable. He sleeps some more.

When he wakes again, he remembers more. He remembers a brother, one of many, venturing on the shore, swallowed by a snake. The swoop of a net he just managed to avoid. The scrim of ice on top of the water. His belly full of mosquitos. And the hunger, oh the hunger. In fact, he is starving. Is it time yet? He can’t feel his toes.

Third time’s the charm. He wakes energized, blood flowing nicely from top to tail (though he doesn’t have a tail, of course). Shaking off the winter doldrums, he rises to the sweet chorus of bird song and bug buzz and his own dear, sweet Phoebe calling him. What a relief! Every year when he awakens, he wonders who made it through the winter, and he has noticed that as he ages, he rises later and later. He is growing old in this pond; someday he may not rise with the call of spring.

He calls to Phoebe, who quickly glides to his side. “Shall we?” he croaks, forgetting his age, his hunger at the sight of her bumpy green skin.

Phoebe is also famished and, quite frankly, dreads having Philippe lounging on her backside for weeks. She claims a headache and leaps away to snatch a tempting mayfly drifting in the still air. She will need to eat her weight in insects before she is ready.

The willow at the far end of the pond dips and sways its golden yellow branches in the breeze; there is just a hint of green in the gold. Dead leaves skitter across the water and plaster the walls of an abandoned beaver lodge. A flock of geese honk from their V-shaped platoon in the blue sky; they have far to go before their next stop. It is still early spring.

Poor Philippe. He can hardly wait for Phoebe’s readiness. This year will be different, he thinks, ever the optimist. This year there will be tadpoles of their own to teach the frogs’ ways. He learned his lessons the hard way, and he remembers his sorrow, watching as brothers and sisters were swallowed whole. Memories of rapacious turtles and hungry herons cause his whole body to shiver, rippling the water and bringing a herd of water bugs closer. Almost of its own volition, his tongue reaches out and snatches one up. He swallows it gratefully. Then another, and another. He pauses and reflects on the lovely nuttiness of the bugs. Next comes a swarm of mosquitos, which makes perfect sense, given the high level of water in the pond and the warm temperature of the air. The buzz of the mosquitoes provides a counterpoint to the chipmunk chitters and the bird chirrs. Such a lovely time of year!

As an elder of the pond, he observes conditions keenly. Each spring he joins a posse that sweeps through the mud and rouses the last of the sleeping frogs. Naturally, some are not sleeping, but he doesn’t dwell on that; even the best doctor can’t cure everyone. And each fall, he herds the tardy ones down to the mud, whether they like the burial or not.

As he sits and munches, friends drop by to ribbit about the weather. They report on the activities of the hawks, the ospreys, and the eagles. They discuss who has been snatched by the grumpy old snapping turtle who controls the south end.

Philippe swims around the pond with Phoebe at his side, satisfied that all is as it should be. No new beaver dams, no bugling swans.

The frog chorus begins in earnest as the sun slowly sinks beyond the edges of the swamp. Phoebe joins Philippe on the shore and together they listen longingly to their nieces and nephews. As the night ink spreads across the indigo sky, constellations appear. Philippe names them for Phoebe: the Dragonfly, Bridge over Calm Waters, Slapping Beaver Tail. The two frogs nestle together in a tuft of leaves and slowly close their eyes to sleep.

Dawn barely turns the dark blue night to lilac and pink when Phoebe nudges Philippe her consent for his approach. Joyously he mounts her, squirting his sperm as she expels eggs. Their mating is sweet and slow, unlike the wild and raucous mating they once enjoyed, where afterward she would nurse her bruised skin and he would swim around in an exhausted haze, both out of commission for quite a while.

Meanwhile, the songbirds return from the winter vacations and start competing with the frogs for the bugs. Although Philippe appreciates the chirping and cheeping of the birds, he is not happy to see them skim away his supper. Phoebe reminds him, as she does every year, that there are enough mosquitoes to share.

Once again, no offspring emerge from the eggs Phoebe has expelled, though there seems to be no lack of tadpoles in the pond. Philippe and Phoebe’s days are spent watching the little fellows grow tails, then legs, then personalities.  

One morning—a rather cool morning with a hint of rain from the east—as Philippe is teaching some tads to identify and avoid a loon’s nest, he hears a human voice coming from the field beyond the pond.

“Fetch, boy,” the human calls. “Fetch.” In response, a dog barks in an accommodating fashion.

The human invasion has begun. Each year, the frogs are plagued by humans who use nets to catch frogs. Most of those unlucky frogs never return, and there are rumors that the humans eat them, though this has never been proven. Some small humans with nets try to catch frogs for the purpose of racing them. Those that are caught but do not choose to leap even when they are prodded are often injured by the sticks that poke and push. These frogs return to the pond as quickly as they can, shamed by the fact they were caught and force-marched for entertainment.

With his wide-angle vision, Philippe sees the first of these intruders: a young woman, tall and willowy, with long blonde hair tied with a midnight blue ribbon that matches her dress. She is tossing a golden-colored ball to a dog with curly red fur.

Kersplash! The ball lands in the water. It will muddle the tads who are swimming nearby, especially if the dog goes into the water to chase it. Without thinking, Philippe uses his head to push the ball to the shore so the girl can pick it up. (He would have used a nose if he had one.) But rather than picking up the ball and saying a polite, “Thank you,” the human girl snatches up the helpful frog, brings him to her lips, and kisses him. She kisses him right on the mouth! A wave of repulsion envelops him, and he shudders and pees in her hand. His first thought is that he hopes Phoebe hasn’t seen this, and his second thought sends another shiver through his body. He has heard that there was once a bewitched frog who became a prince after such a kiss. Could he be a spellbound prince? Thank heavens no, the dreaded transformation does not occur. She tosses Philippe back into the water, and he swims away, far, far away, with every stroke washing away the taste of those human lips.

Spring melts into summer, the water warms, and the numbers of intruders increase. Philippe and Phoebe watch as the newest crop of tads grow legs and begin to swim more efficiently. But, oh, they are a frisky bunch. He tries to tell them that curiosity killed the trout, but still they swim towards any hook dangling a worm in the water. Sadly, several of the tads are swallowed by fish that are likewise drawn to the worms.

Phoebe, as usual, has organized the summer frog chorus. Every evening at dusk, the frogs begin their tuneful croak and rumble. As the summer progresses, the choruses diminish as two by two the adolescent frogs pair off in an orgy of mating that guarantees the continuity of pond life. Philippe takes pride in his partner’s accomplishment.

Then one day, the unthinkable happens. Phoebe is caught up in a net. Though she wiggles and writhes, she cannot escape the webbing that holds her fast. He sees that her delicate four-toed foot is caught in the netting. Who has caught her? Is it that same yellow-haired human that caught him early that season?

There is another kiss, a loud smack that sends a shiver through Philippe’s soul. Oh, he will have his hands full bringing comfort to Phoebe after such an assault. He waits for her at the edge of the pond, watching to see which direction she swims away.

But she does not swim!

Phoebe turns from green to pale pink and her beautiful bumps smooth away. The girl drops her in alarm, or maybe Phoebe has grown too heavy to hold. Philippe watches with growing horror as his beloved partner morphs into a human, taller and taller, farther and farther away from the pond at her feet. Philippe rumbles, “Phoebe, Phoebe, Phoebe,” but she does not respond.

In fact, Phoebe does not hear Philippe’s distinctive call amid all the other calls. She wiggles her fingers, keenly aware of five—not four—on each hand. She feels the hair growing out of the top of her head and the crown on top of that. She runs her hands down the neck that holds her head above her body, her protruding breasts, and two monstrously long legs that hold her upright. She has a moment of confusion, then it all becomes clear. “I am human!” she gasps.

Poor Phoebe, Philippe thinks. How heavy the air must feel against her giant form. How burdened her feet must feel to carry all that weight. He expects her to jump back into the pond and somehow become a frog again. But she does not. Instead she seems to be dancing and laughing with the other human.

 “She is human,” he croaks to himself, with growing revulsion. No wonder no tadpoles grew from her eggs. He shudders to think of the half-human, half-frogs that might have emerged. And to think he had blamed their infertility on human-caused pollution of the airborne nature. No question, this is pollution of the worst type—of the witchcraft nature caused by mouth-to-mouth contact.

Philippe is aware of the community that has gathered, some on the shore line, some with their eyes just above the water. He hears a low rumble of ribbits, some angry, some sympathetic. His whole life has been a sham. His humiliation is complete as he watches the Phoebe-human walk away without a moment’s hesitation.

Not a glance back at the pond that has brought her total acceptance, kindness, and nurturing. Not a glance back at the love of her life. He swims slowly down to the bottom of the pond, contemplating suicide. What was the point of going on and on and on—day after day, the same insects, the same pond songs, the same freeze-thaw-freeze. But, of course, his skin continues to absorb oxygen even as his lungs stop.

And so, after a day or so of despair, he rises again. He is frog. He thrusts his tongue out and catches a delectable mosquito full of blood he thinks might be Phoebe’s. How delicious she tastes.

~~~~~

Andrea Chesman is the author of several cookbooks. Her fiction has appeared online in Green Mountains Review, Blue Lake Review, The Offbeat, and Touchstone Literary Magazine, among others. Her short story, “The Rooster” featured in the Medusa’s Laugh Press anthology, Twisted, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.