A Safer Place

A Safer Place

By Angela R. Hunt 

It happened many months ago, it started at this very pond. I was a young leopard frog then. I swam. I leaped. I sang with my family and friends. Our community was loud. We sang all the time. Laughter floated on a breeze soothing the soul with the sweet scent of hedge roses. The cattails swayed and played a smooth counterpoint to our playful songs. We enjoyed our games and we practiced leaping to catch the tastiest flies. Everyone had a dream to strive for, even if that dream was sitting on the bank in the sun on a lazy afternoon or skating on the ice in the nippy days of winter. The fish were too small to eat us and turtles never bothered with our tiny pond. 

One day two long tall pillars rose to a gray shape towering into the clouds. It seemed to move now and then, but we thought our minds played tricks on us. We had never seen a heron before. 

Suddenly, everything changed. There was sharp sudden waves, vanished frogs carried screaming and squirming away in the beak of a heron. The heron preyed on our trusting nature, it fed until we all learned fear. We learned to hide, to stifle our songs, to live in the safety of cool brown mud. 

The heron’s shadow finally lifted away. Many watched the sky and quivered, refusing to come out of the mud until they had too but racing back to safety as quickly as they could. Some shouted that the bullfrogs had a conspiracy that brought the heron so they could dominate the best parts of the pond. 

Several frogs found a silver shiny pot, smaller than their muddy home. This pot had a lid that covered most of the top but was slid open a tantalizing crack. It was nestled in a muddy hole near our lovely pond. It was new. The depths inside seemed warm and inviting, safe from the sight of those who enjoy feasting on frogs. No heron could reach us here. Many frogs were adamant we should all move into the pot. 

 The frogs who found the silver pot fed on the power and respect they gained over the frog community. They told us not to sing, the told us to live in the bucket. Many did. They said they were making us safe, that they wanted what was best for us.  

A few shouted and sang and leaped outside the pot, calling out a warning to all of us inside. They weren’t being snatched up by predators. They were fine still living in the muddy pond.  I watched many frogs in the pot lower their fearful heads while a few grew restless and jumped back out. I watched as most of the frogs held their heads down and stayed.  I was curious so I waited, certain I could leave any time and trying to decide whether this idea was a good one or not. 

The pot shifted, the water spun in a crazy way. Frogs were thrown against each other, everyone struggling to swim and to figure out what was happening. The sky changed above the pot. There were humans gathered around looking in, the lid was gone. There was gray smoke and crackling sounds around the outside of the pot. The water started getting warmer. It felt good. I did not want to be in the pot anymore. Many of us struggled and several tried to convince us all to stay. 

The wildest, craziest, bravest frogs struggled out of the pot and raced away. Some of those frogs were killed horribly by predators lurking around the outside of the pot waiting for just such a chance. Hawks, herons, cats, dogs, foxes, snakes, it seemed every ancient predator we feared had come for us. I was amongst them, I kept my eyes on a patch of tall grass. I leaped as fast and far as I could. I made it! I watched as my family and friends, the bravest and boldest raced away from the pot. 

Many froze in fear certain the end was near, there were too many predators around.  Somehow they all knew that the pot had a lot of frogs. For many it was the end. A few looked back and leaped away faster and more determined than before. They realized what they saw, I saw the same thing from my patch of grass. The sight drove some mad. I looked. I saw. 

I am warning you. It is the most important lesson for a frog. Do not live in a silver pot. You cannot live in a silver pot. Safety is not life, it is preparation to be consumed by something else. You see, that silver pot had moved and rested on red hot rocks in the middle of lapping orange waves of fire. I watched, waiting for the screams of those inside. As their green and black turned to an ugly color I listened and heard them joke about how stupid we were for running away! 

They died with smiles on their faces. I watched as the humans picked them out, friends and family became nothing more than stew and gristle left stinking in the weeds by the riverbank. 

Children, sing. Sing loud, leap high, strive to catch the wind and taste the sweetest flies. Beware of the shadows around you. Beware of a fearful frog, never heed its songs as they will only lead to madness and sorrow. To tell the truth I think the humans made this pond to lure us here, to tease us with comfort, excess and eventually to get us into that silver pot. Never rest in a home of silver, regardless of how golden you think it is.