And So the Frog Blew

When the wind is all but a-howling outside, threatening to ransack the posts of one’s fortress, whispering of unearthly things and weeping through ceiling cracks, one does not do much but to sit or lay or crouch in any manner of position in one’s house. And if one has a positive void of company (no folks to chuckle at, I mean) he cannot help but sit by something warm and flickering, if it is in his capability.

            And if he does not have a novel to a read or a novel to write, then the thing warm and flickering transforms… into a thing of beauty.  Well—rather…

            “Transforms? Was I not before a thing of beauty?”

            And then it begins to speak. Its voice is like starlight and dusk, and somewhere in between and somewhere darker. It is raspy, but gentle. Gentle, but callous.

            The man sitting near cleared his throat.  He was a genuine man, yet looked to be somewhat of a frog, of a frog more of a toad. And of a toad-- well, golly.  A wrinkly thing, whatever the matter.

            Our froggy peered down closely at the flame. “You’re a flame.”

            “Yes.”

            “And you’re speakin’”

            “Yes.”

            “There ain’t sumthin behind you is there?” For of course a flame has a source, being of a number of possibilities, and this source stood quite plainly on the coffee table to be a wick. Down the wick, if one’s eyes were not pushed too far up into their head, one could see that the wick was quite plainly attached to a candle.

            A Pillar Candle, at that, who responded rather swiftly. “Like a dead frog there’s something be’ind me!”  

            The man was taken aback. He’d already gotten all sorts of abuse from his wife and his little wrinkly toads, and if there was anything he wasn’t going to do, he decided rashly, was to take verbal from a flame!

            “A bit touchy, ay!” This time his poking out eyes were so vicious and his eyebrows flew so high that his flat hat nearly popped right off.  Thank fortune, dear reader, that his hat did not pop off. He was quite ugly enough without seeing his head, and I certainly do not want to describe the poor thing to you.  The candle should be surely glad that it could not see, because the rest of him was not all grand appearance either.

            The candle had thought up a witty response by now. Sometimes it was bright and fast; most often not. “Well maybe you’d be a bit grumpy if you was a candle. Try it sometime and see. Not so cheery, eh?”

            “’Specially cause ya can’t see,” Froggy muttered slyly, prying the large column of wax.

            “Why, there’s fru’it and all sorts of things on the side of ya!” He then exclaimed.

            “Stop. Get away!”

            “Now you listen dear candle, you’ve got’a lot of explaining to do, so you’d better do it quick. Or per’aps I’ll just take a knife to ya and cut ya up into bits and then you’ll stop talking and be a good sensible candle once more!”

            “Please cut it into bits! Cut it up and let me out!”

            Now this took our dear frog by surprise. For it is not a usual thing when the candle you’ve been reading by for sixty years calls you a dead frog, and then even a more rare deed when it demands to be cut up and let out. You proceed with his method of thought, correct? Exceptional thought. Clear and precise even under a pronounced threat of insanity! Yet there was then one thought left unexplored. Now just being so.

            “Golly fellow, just what are you?”

            The candle sighed. “I am your party favor, your surprise gift, your comforting voice when loneliness prevails. I am your talking candle.” 

And the sorrow resonating through all of its words struck froggy to his little pumping green heart, and stayed there for a bit, thawing it.

“No… you’re lying. Is that what others used you for? Who are you really?”

Now the candle was slightly overwhelmed, seeing as two queries had just been introduced, and that they were queries that he had begged to answer for just over two hundred years.  It took a moment to respond, and meanwhile, frog sharpened his teeth.

“Well, yes. Your grandfather. And your father. They used me for such.”

A pause.

“I am a moth. Trapped in the grasp of a pillar candle-- an evil thing stuffed with many preserved bits of nature. For decoration. I was frozen for a long while in the bottom of the pillar, voiceless… until your grandfather lit it. Heat seeps down gradually, you see, and whence it reaches me I begin to thaw, and my mouth thaws first. I spoke to your grandfather. He did not release me. I spoke to your father. He did not release me. And speaking to them proved to be a very sad mistake indeed. Had I not spoken, they would have let the candle burn, the flame would have reached to the bottom of the pillar and I would be incinerated, and much the gladder for it.”

“So why did you speak to me?”

“You think I cannot see but yet I can, and have been able to for quite a while. Not see in the shallow tense of it, however, but seeing as in senses. I can feel the heat of the candle. The vibration as a page turns. The echoing of a voice. You are different. You read books, you light the candle for pleasure and not for show. You watch the flame when lonely. You are sympathetic, and I trust you for that. Please let me go. Free me of burning wax. Allow breeze to flutter my wings once more, and then I can die in peace. Please!”

It was not a simple thing to do. You might be thinking just now, “cruel indeed to keep him trapped inside the candle! How could one even entertain thought of such a thing?” But the temptation was very real. The frog was despised, socially. He would like to have a friend that is trapped. He would like to have something to converse with on particularly windy nights.

            It seemed a lovely idea, except for one flaw. How could he ever enjoy the friendship of a soul who hated him?

            And so carefully, he carved the large yellow candle down and down and down to the very core of it until the shape of a moth unfolded. It involved a file and some razors, and few drops of hot water, but the shell of preservative was finally cracked.

The moth was grey. It could have spoken, but did not dare. I suppose it wanted to make use of all senses to feel any sort of breeze that might drift by and touch its wings. It was dying. Almost dead. No breeze yet.

            And so the frog blew.