He lives inside a round cement pond behind my house. The dark, sinister looking water with rotting mango leaves provides him with the ideal camouflage that merges perfectly with his muddy green skin colour. Most of the time he just floats on the water with only the tip of his head breaking the still surface while his legs lie stretched out taut under. I have named him ‘Dude' – a name inspired by my envy for the tranquil and relaxed life that he enjoys in there. You have guessed right, this good friend of mine is a frog.
It is strange for me to have such a friend, as from the beginning I have had an aversion to frogs. I have always liked snakes. Their skin is dry and smooth. Frogs on the other hand have a slimy skin, and this universal characteristic of theirs has always made me keep my distance from them. In addition many of them instinctually urinate when picked up, and though their urine itself is totally harmless, this nasty habit of theirs has pushed my dislike for them even further. The only time I ever handled them was when I had to feed them to one of the snakes I was keeping.
My
partial phobia is irrational – I am fully aware that there are no poisonous
frogs or toads in
Dude on the other hand I took a liking to from the start. It was something of his peaceful and non-interfering nature that brought on this odd bond between the two of us.
In the beginning Dude was a little wary of me. Whenever I would pass by the tank he would promptly plop into the depths of the pond and sit quietly on the floor unaware that I could still see him clearly like a dirty rock amongst the leaves. But over a period of time - as I learned not to startle him suddenly, and as Dude himself began to get used to me - he would remain floating grotesquely, staring up at me with those madly twisted eyes unfocused like a mental patient. Then if I stared too long he would irately sink backwards into the water and plant himself unmoving on the floor.
The water in this pool varies in depth as it dries, and one day I decided to fill it back to the brim again. In the night when I went out to have a look at the pond, Dude was sitting on the border of the tank. With the water level high up he was able to climb up and crouch there, waiting tense as an Olympic swimmer does for the crack of the starting gun.
When Dude spotted me I only had a flash of his image, before he dived clean like an arrow into the black pond water. And except for his ugly head, he cut the figure of an athletic Tarzan diving into an African jungle stream.
The following morning when I went to check on Dude I found him gone. I cursed myself for having filled up the tank so much, but I also felt good in a way that I had given him his freedom. He was no ‘frog in the well' any more.
Then one day about a week later, I heard that characteristic plop again. I rushed to the pond. Staring up at me was the guilty face of Dude. Joy of joys, a smile broke on my face. I could have said a lot to Dude at that moment, but he is not the talking type. With all the snakes moving around in my compound I was really happy that he had made it back alive.
Now some time has flown by, and as the pond dries and is refilled by me, Dude will disappear and reappear rhythmically without the trace of a ‘hi' or a ‘goodbye' ever. But like I said earlier, he is not the type to hug and kiss, or shake my hand warmly when leaving or coming back. Some friendships are built that way. The true test for us lies not in sending each other Christmas cards or buying each other presents. It lies in remembering each other always even though we may never see each other again. I know I will remember Dude …always.
