Photo by laura adai on Unsplash
The Magnificence of Pond Water by James Callan
A radiant jewel is sewn into the vast tapestry of arid wasteland. It sparkles, an emerald marsh that is abundant with frogs. One must cross the torrid plains, crest the sand-swept drifts, to see it for themselves: a thriving kingdom of amphibians, waterfowl, and fish. Clinging to the rim of its warm pools, a wreath of verdure halos its banks and, radiating outward, flowering grasses fade into brittle straw, then dust. It is an island oasis, a small plot of water among a sea of rock and sand.
The rain falls seldom, but when it does, it finds its way to the marshland, fed by the few rivulets that thread the barren dunes. Amid the standing water, storks are mirrored in its peridot pools, while dragonflies thread erratic flight paths between the reeds. Egrets, like angels, spread their luminous white wings, crying out like demons, ancient and ugly. Turtles bask as if begging to be cooked in their shells, eventually dipping to splash into the tepid water. Mallards quack and frogs croak; theirs is a song to fill the lifeless quiet of the desolate void around them. Theirs is a melody to entice any passing traveller.
Oh, such sweet, sweet music! Harmonies, divine!
Amidst the dull drone of desert wind, a hymn of guidance carries the prowess of religion. Sirens pass for seraphim in times of need, toads for temptresses. On the ears of man who has gone days without water, a single splash suggests the sound of salvation, and so, the weary nomad falls to his knees and, cupping his ears, funnels the primordial music of frogs, the prehistoric vocals of storks and herons.
It awaits him over the very next rise. It is almost within reach—fresh water.
In the warm shallows the frogs blink in the blazing sun. They dip their heads beneath the soup and watch through the veil of their nictitating membrane. They observe the arrival of a parched traveller, an upright ape wearing clothes, makeshift skins that reveal its human nuance. The ungraceful biped arrives from out of the scrub and sand to approach the expanse of marsh, its chain of interlinked ponds and reed-choked channels. An ochre world turned suddenly green, he weeps in relief for his discovery of water.
Hark! A waterlogged biome amid the bone-dry desert. Lo! An anomaly that will surely save his life.
The human walks out into the muddy water, where, among the denizens of the marsh, he undergoes a baptism of sorts. He is renewed by his brush with death, his sudden release from its eternal claim to his soul. Elated, he falls face-first into the marsh, happily seduced by the phantom that calls to him from under the water. Tadpoles gather in great swarms, vast clouds of half-developed smiles and rudimentary eyes. Like sperm to an egg, they propel their grapefruit-heads on would-be legs, a clumsy tail that sends their soft bodies to bombard the desert wanderer. Against his flesh, their toothless nibbles are like gentle kisses.
It is all too much, too much joy—the wonder of being saved by the water. It has ignited every positive emotion, every possible emotion, a plethora of feelings to experience and endure. From under the water, bubbles rise in maniacal laughter. Nearby, the Frog Queen is disturbed from her slumber.
A mucus-coated monarch dives and, hardly making a splash, cuts the water with artful strokes, powerful kicks. An amphibious autarch pierces the gloom with eyes well-suited to murky water. A web-footed empress marks the human visitor, his fevered laughter under the water, his tears which mingle with the turbid marsh that engulfs his graceless land-body. She feels it like a stone in her royal belly, an instinct churning deep within her froggy guts: this is a day of reckoning, a fated meeting between man and frog.
There is soft suction upon his legs, his hips, his ribs, and the meager kisses from a cloud of infant frogspawn become tinged with pain—minimal, but increasing by the moment. The man is too ecstatic to foresee his plight, to note the doom-shaped darkness that fast approaches to cleave the horde of its progeny in two retreating halves. Slick against his shins, his thighs, an amphibious bulk is shadowed by the canopy of waterlilies. All around him, the water goes cold.
She rises out from the pool, pale belly slick and shining in the hot desert sun. Weeds hang like tinsel from her wide, rounded shoulders, threads of emerald scum from her monstrous head. She wears no crown, and wields no scepter, yet her presence is evidence enough: here stands a Queen, a Goddess of the pond. Her great, bulbous eyes blink once, a transparent film, then twice, an outer eyelid, before reopening as wide and bright as a warrior’s burnished rondels. It is far too late when the fear kicks in, when the human’s own, small eyes open wide with astonishment and horror. Too late is the man’s instinct to run. And besides, he is chin-deep in water…he could not run even if he tried.
Does the Frog Queen smile? It’s hard to tell with that placid, almost dead expression. But the croak that escapes her wide, lipless mouth suggests more than mere joy--it is closer to exaltation. Her prodigious maw opens, expanding impossibly wide, and like a great executioner’s hood, it falls over the human’s head, turning all his senses black and void.
Seduction, elation, procreation, destruction. A fatal fever of pleasure of pain, delight and death. The Frog Queen devours the desert nomad and, in the aftermath of her ecstasy, her frogspawn feast on the bits of him that float among the emerald water.
A radiant jewel is sewn into the vast tapestry of arid wasteland. It sparkles, an emerald marsh that is abundant with frogs. Their song can be heard across the miles of desolate wasteland, calling out to thirsty travelers, “Salvation awaits. Here lies water.”