Chapter 27: Leap Frog

This evening, while drinking the concentrated juice of apples and looking out the window at the darkened city, lonely of light save a lamp here and there, I approached the Frog dwelling and asked my friends what they would like to do tonight, perhaps something lively, as it is just past the summer solstice, and I needed reassurance in the face of non-Time going by so quickly.  

The Frogs were playing a game of Leap Frog.  It may be strange to hear that the amphibious friends play this game, (as it would seem too typical or far-fetched for them to actually play) but in reality, in the reality shared by you and me, they do (if indeed we do share it, instead of hoard, ration, or keep it.)  Many Men do not believe that Frogs play the game, but this is because - as Peaseblossom says - Men have a knack for believing (or convincing themselves of) the un-real and yet not believing the truth in front of them, an iniquity which is in all likelihood caused by their similarity to those prissy pruners: the Curs`ed Birds, who are adept at maintaining their vanity, flying, (which is for the birds, a phrase coined by Mustardseed) and who, of course, are perilously infamous for their appetite for certain amphibious creatures which shall not be named because those wonderful amphibious Friends do not like to hear of that particular tendency.  Such Curs`ed Bird creatures are, unfortunately, imitated by Men.

Peaseblossom said that this is because Men have a knack for believing (or convincing themselves of) the un-real and yet not believing the truth in front of them.

Bird

And so I watched the Frogs play their game, an exact copy of what you and I might call Leap Frog, except perhaps a more appropriate title for their game would be Rapid Leap Frog, as the Frogs are most adept and agile in their game, which is surely the ancient purified form of our version of Leap Frog, for our bodies are so unwieldy and ponderous for such feats, feats for which the Frogs are agile and yet strong, built for such olympics.  In the (original) Frog game, the Frogs leap over each other in rapid succession, hopping over one another with the consistency of cogs within a machine - so fast as to convey an image more related to the falling and churning of water than the jumping of creatures.  Around and about they roll, in a brown-and-green hoop-blur, making myriad tiny splotching noises upon the wood floor.  

So delighted was I that I pulled out my ancient flute, dust-laden and neglected, and began piping the liveliest ramble of notes that I could manage, all the while capering and smiling at my Friends, under the glow of two meek lamps, in my small Dwelling.