Toady finds a way

no one ever really liked little Toady. his egg, having been watched over very carelessly by his dolt of a mother, rolled away one day into the river and he was born a tadpole among the wild salmon and the river otter, with no direction on how to be a proper toad.

for a while as a young tad, Toady thought he had found others just like himself. as he was indolently wagging his tail to and fro through the river on the second day of his life, he chanced upon a small underwater alcove brimming with tad activity. not one to be shy, Toady joined the party, and mindlessly swam in circles through the other tads until nightfall settled over the alcove. Toady could not have thought of any other way to be in the world, for he was quite limited in these kinds of faculties. he continued on this way, and would have done so indefinitely, if it had not been for the noticeable changes that were all of a sudden taking place in his body.

you see, while the other tads continued to be tads, Toady was on his way to toademhood. his long rod-like tail was becoming so stout, and to compensate, his previously useless tendrils began to kick a little. Toady had no opinion on these changes, but he was a little miffed when the tads surrounded him and marched him out of their alcove. little did Toady know that he had happened upon the last living pod of panpeter tadpoles, the tads that never grow up, and being in that fragile existence they did not take well to outsiders like Toady.

so Toady swam on down the river, relatively unmoved by the wonders that passed him by. the magnificent salmon swimming upstream against the current had little effect on his fancies, but they did give him a jolt and subsequent bump on his head as he he swam head first into them. the bump would later turn into dent, the damage of which would permanently cause his mouth to hang open ever so slightly. the salmon shouted at him in salmonese, but Toady knew naught of that foreign tongue, so he went on his way, bruised and forgotten.

Toady henceforth spent his time drifting in and out of scenes that belonged to other creatures.  after he became full toad he exited the water and took up residence in the woodland forest, where he hopped amongst the fox and the mole. the fox was terribly cruel to him and poked fun of his dent, while the mole was even more oblivious to the world than Toady was. one time Toady saw a baby mole munching on a worm completely care-free while the fox placed leaf after leaf over his head, until the fox grew bored with the mole's complete lack of awareness of the world around him. with something that resembled a toad's resignation, Toady lived on in the woodland forest as best as he knew how.

that is, until one day later in his life he was feeling unusually enterprising and hopped so far that he finally found some other toads, just like himself. when Toady approached the group they were squatting in a protective semi-circle around something on the ground, unseen from Toady's position. without introduction, Toady nudged his way in until his buggy eyes had a good view.  what Toady saw had a profound impact on him: it was an old, wrinkled toad! the old toad was lying supine on the ground with a fox skin pillow and cover of leaf, and it looked like it was in unbearable pain.

Toady inched his way closer to get a good look at this venerable creature. suddenly, the old toad spoke to him in a hushed, raspy voice.

"Toady, i am your mother."

Toady's eyes bulged and his mouth dropped down another quarter of an inch. Toady had heard the babble of the fox, the low pitched mumble of the mole and gurgled salmonese, but he had never heard anything he could understand before. without giving him a chance to respond, Toady's mother continued.

"i have missed you more than you will ever know, dear Toady."

somewhere in Toady's heart, a piece of kindling sparked, a sparrow took flight for the first time.

"CROOOOAK, CROAK CROAK CROOAK!" exclaimed Toady.

"what is that, m'boy? speak your mind, Toady!" replied his mother, gathering her strength a bit.

"croak? croak croak??"

Toady turned around to seek help from his brothers and sisters, but they looked just as puzzled.

"Toady, what you say?" shouted sister toad. 

Toady let his jaw slack again and slumped a little. damn! he could understand toad, but they couldn't understand toady. Toady waved his webbed fingers in the air--it was no matter. his sudden rush of feeling had subsided, but he still felt a kind of contentment he had never known before. Toady reached down to give his mother a pat, but she had already fallen into a deep sleep.

for days, Toady's brothers and sister fretted over their long lost sibling. they even went as far to hold him down while they kneaded out the dent in his head until it was completely sheer on one side. upon seeing his dashing reflection in a pool of water, Toady contemplated showing his new noggin off to the wild salmon, but he feared they might make a new dent, and he wasn't sure if he would be able to find his way back to his siblings' home.

unfortunately, it was inevitable that the other toads would lose interest in Toady--he couldn't say anything that made any sense to them and they increasingly realized how uncouth he was. to their credit, the siblings tried to overlook his eccentricities, but Toady's sagging mouth and disgusting habits made them feel ashamed. for god's sake, Toady gorged himself on anything set in front of him, always shoveling shoveling shoveling whatever morsel he could find into his mouth, whereas his siblings sat patiently and ate only that which was a delicate tongue's flick away. it was really all too much for those upstanding toads, who had never known what it was like to have been a loan toad fending for him or herself.

as his siblings grew colder, the fire that had been kindled in Toady's heart grew dim. the toads are scum, he thought as he lay awake one night. but Toady had a plan. the next morning at dawn he set off, not with malice but with a kind of toady love, not forgetting the favor his siblings had done him by smoothing out his dented head. that being said, Toady did not look back, and pressed forward with the faint thoughts of a different life in a different place with unspoken creatures.

TO BE CONTINUED....