This story is by Eunice Adu and won an honorable mention in our 2024 Fall Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here.
Eunice Adu is a Ghanaian illustrator, product designer, and writer. Her work spans romance, thriller, and the unexpected, exploring life’s discoveries through her unique perspective. Based in Waterloo, Canada, she currently freelances in preparation for her next creative role. Follow her latest writing and illustrative projects on Instagram at world_of_eu.
“In a hole, in a pond, on a log, beneath a flea, lay a frog.”
I belted the song quite loudly but the boy and his dad did not turn.
I tried again. “At the edge of a pond, in a hole, on a log, sat a frog and above it, a flea.”
“Wrong, wrong, wrong!” screeched the flea above me. He had told me his name but I did not want to remember. I shook my body. Still, he remained.
“Beneath an annoying flea, on a log, in a hole, at a pond’s shore, sat a singing frog!”
The son’s head turned and I jumped, excited.
I was old, with wrinkly skin, weak bones and a hind leg I had injured while playing with my wife when we first met.
So, when I leapt, I did not get far.
The son turned away and the flea cackled. “A frog that cannot leap!” He sang. “Even the crickets laugh at you!”
With a scoff, my eyes rolled to said crickets. “They are not laughing. They are courting.”
I envied the crickets. It wasn’t that long ago that I had courted my wife. Now, they mocked me my loss each day they could. I had been the one that kept the night loud!
“Oh, Frog,” said the flea. “You are sad. You are sad and you are alone and you are sad. Ms. Dragon Fly has her partners but you are alone.”
‘Ms. Dragon Fly’ as the flea calls her, swooped past at the mention of her name with two other dragon flies on her tail. None paused for a chat.
They did that often, begging for my attention with their constant movement but then continuing on with their life. Self-centered nuisances.
I rolled my eyes to the flea that sat atop me. “I have told you Flea, again and again. My name is not Frog. It is Bernarrrd!, Bernarrrd OK?”
“Yes Frog, yes, I know. I know your name. You are so proud of your name. But look. Look now. How wise I am! How loudly you shouted your name! They have heard you!”
They boy had crept towards me oh so slowly that when I noticed him, it was too late. His pudgy palms swept me up and the flea slid off my head.
“Weeee,” squealed the flea, regaining his balance on a nearby rock.
“Goodbye Frog. Goodbye! Don’t be sad Frog! We will miss you, Frog! Greet Bernice for me, Frog! I will miss you, Frog! Maybe I will visit you!”
“Don’t you dare!” I croaked in response as the child showed me off to his father.
During the journey in the little boy’s hands, I dreamed of my Bernice.
I imagined when we reunited in the same cage, I would sing for her the songs I used to sing for her and she would bump me on the head in her overly painful but probably full of love way of hers to shut me up.
When I opened my eyes, I was not in a cage.
I did not share the potential future of becoming deep fried frog legs for some human to snack on together with my wife. As this author had initially imagined.
Instead, I was on a shore. By a pond. On a log. Not in a hole! I scanned my head. No flea!
It was uncanny how much this pond resembled my other pond. But it could not be the same one.
I knew because, not too far to go unnoticed, was the frog I loved. My Bernice’s light green and brown-green-splattered skin grabbed attention in a way that had always made me feel undeserving.
But she had chosen me. She had accepted my clumsy attempts at affection ignited by her beauty. Later maintained through companionship. She believed I deserved her. I checked her surroundings; did her belief remain? That was when I noticed it.
The creature was bigger than my flea. Its multiple round eyes depicted sections of the earth that surrounded it. Its scent in the delicate wind told me it wanted to be eaten. How could Bernice do this? Allow a creature lesser than us sit so comfortably on her back?
Another matter that slices my little heart, were the products of her obviously recent birth that lay to her side.
Perhaps, my Bernice, the alliteration to my Bernard was no longer mine alone. “Oh Bernard,” the flea would say. “You are back. You are still alone. You are still sad.”
As I checked the feelings in my heart, I sensed that I could accept my loneliness. Part of me had expected it. But I could not accept my Bernice befriending a fly!
I made an empowered, belatedly overconfident, forgetfully disillusioned attempt at a hop then flopped, face first into-you guessed it-a hole.
“A frog on a log in a hole at the edge of a pond,” teased Bernice each time I made my embarrassing fall into a hole I could not escape from. Then she’d join me so I would not be alone.
“Two frogs on a log in a hole at the edge of a pond.” We’d sing it together until she’d get sick of it and let me climb on her to struggle my way out of the hole.
Then one day, the little boy’s father heard us singing and took my Bernice away. I have been alone since then.
But now, I did not even have a flea to keep me company! The fact was an upsetting one to admit.
I stayed in that hole for a day and a night before I pushed my embarrassment away enough to sing.
“On a log in a hole at the edge of a pond; On a log in a hole at the edge of a pond; On a log, on a log, on a log in a hole–”
A familiar buzzing sound.
It could not be the dragon flies. I was at an unfamiliar pond. Was Bernice coming for me? Accompanied by her obvious new fly friend?
I squinted out of the hole. It was Bernice’s fly! Bernice’s head followed soon after and, to my complete surprise, the flea’s head poked out from on top of the fly!
“Oh Bernard! Oh Bernard! You have fallen. You have fallen again! You poor frog that cannot leap but can sing.”
“Flea! How are you here? Bernice, my love, how are you? I see you have moved on.” Play it cool, Bernard. Play it cool. You are a cold-blooded creature.
“Bernard. It really is you. The song you were singing-”
“Yes, Bernice. I remembered the song you taught me. You come up with the strangest songs. I miss you. I love you. Please come back to me.” Show her your desperation, Bernard. You are a sad creature deserving pity.
“Oh, I’m sorry Bernard. I cannot. There are no female frogs here. I cannot leave. Also, I did not come up with the song. It was Flia.”
“Who?”
“Flia.” Bernice bobbed her body, bouncing the fly and flea that sat atop her.
The pair flew off her and down onto me. I held myself stiff, confused by how the sensation was not as unpleasant as it usually was.
“I followed you Bernard. I called to you in the truck but you ignored me and then I lost you but I then I found you and had to save you so I found Bernice and now I can save you.” The Flea/Flia sounded way too close to tears for my comfort.
“You really like me huh?”
“Of course silly Frog. I only tease and hung out with animals I like.”
“Shut up and help me out of this hole. ”
And so I listened to the wise words of my now ex-wife–because she had never actually wanted to be climbing into the hole with me and had only done so out of obligation–, and stepped onto a bump on the log. Then the oddly silent fly (most likely because of the tired author) fluttered its wings just enough for me to step out of the hole.
I said goodbye to my Berni–no, to Bernice and wished her all the best in her motherly endeavours.
As we trudged back to our pond, (Flia said they knew the way) Flia released a high pitched giggle every once in a while. Eventually I got curious enough. “What’s funny?”
“The song you sing. You learnt from Bernice. She learnt from me. I learnt from a human and you sing it so wrong. The real song is, On a flea, on a fly, on a frog, on a bump, on a log, in a hole, in the bottom of the sea–”
“Wait, wait, a flea and a fly cannot be at the bottom of the sea. They would drown.”
“But that’s the song.”
“Well it doesn’t make sense.
“Humans don’t make sense. There is a pond. And then they make another pond. And then they drain the water from the old pond. They are playing with our lives. But the songs they sing. The songs are fun. Is it alright if we sing together?”
A duet! “Sure, whatever.” Play it cool, Bernard. Play it cool. You are a cold-blooded creature.
Leave a Reply