Frogs

Though no one had been in the mobile home for seven years, I wasn't prepared for the total wreck of the place. My grandmother, on the other hand, barely noticed that our weight on the linoleum threatened to push right through the bruised wood underneath. She didn't notice the lizards clinging to the rotten curtains, the smell of wild animals or the scurry of little feet overhead. All she saw was a place she was stubbornly going to reclaim after losing her mate of fifty years.

While she went to inspect the other rooms, I cranked the windows open in the kitchen. On the sill, I noticed three tiny frogs between the double-paned windows. At first I thought they were little ceramic frogs, kitschy art fading in the blistering Florida sun. But, on a closer look, I saw that they were real.

They were laid out like some sort of triptych, a study of the different ways death was met. One frog had died on its stomach. Another had died sitting up, fixed in its own dried juices. There was a remarkable impression of movement in its body, as if it were, even now, trying to dislodge itself from its own quicksand of fear. The third one had died on its back with its arms and legs flung open, like a trusting baby sound asleep. Over time, it had dried out to such a degree that a small circular piece of its belly had fallen off, revealing its innards. In contrast to its gray body, its organs had retained their individual colours, especially the heart.

I pointed them out to my grandmother, who unceremoniously swept them with her hand onto the floor and pushed them out the door with her broom.

So we began cleaning in earnest, reclaiming some civilization in all that wild chaos. We worked for five days straight, morning until night, to make the place hospitable. After we were done, my grandmother sat on the couch where my grandfather used to fall asleep in front of the television at night. She was happy to be here, away from the Canadian snow she hated so much. And I was happy for her, even though I couldn't stop thinking about the frogs.

On the plane home, I looked down at the receding Florida landscape. I wondered why those frogs had turned their backs on the purple waters that snake through the marshes near us. Why they had climbed up hot aluminum siding to squeeze through the crack of an abandoned trailer's window. Probably for flies, I figured, and once they had gorged themselves on this unexpected feast, they must have been too fat to fit back through the crack. And so they were stuck there.

Their fate seemed to demonstrate some sort of cautionary tale, like “be careful what you wish for” or “the grass always looks greener,” but to me they were a reminder that you can never go back. No matter how much you miss something or want it back, it never is the same. Yet how remarkable that after all this time under the scorching sun, a heart can still be red.