Dale wants to be a writer. He enters a writing competition, wins third place and is awarded a grant. He decides to use a week of holiday, to get out of the big city, and go on a residency to focus on his novel. To try to find himself as an artist. Instead he finds vast grey nature, gauzy flat bog-like plains stretching onwards to the hills. His designated space for the week, a fashionable converted storage container made of aluminium. A steely box.
Despite the designer furniture and sheep-skin rug, the space is intensely damp and cold. There is black mould growing in the right corner of the ceiling. The tips of Dale’s fingers and nose are icicles. It is hard to focus. There is no wifi or phone network in the cabins. In order to get either of those, a long walk up a muddy hill, in rain and sleet.
In the main residency space, a large open-plan barn with a library and kitchen, he exchanges glances with other retreat attendees. He smiles with his eyes, but senses the contact he is making is merely fleeting, an obligation arising from sharing the same physical area.
It seems that, in other containers, people are getting ‘creative’. On his daily walks, he sees someone slap paint on a large canvas through a murky window. In another, two women are creating a dystopian opera based on Greek tragedy, in which all the characters are wolves. He overhears them talking about it by the microwave, between mouthfuls of quinoa.
Back in his cabin, he observes a pond from the floor to ceiling window. Long reeds on the edges, weeds, mosses. Bubbles bursting on the surface of the water. If Dale focuses he can see many little frogs jumping around. How lovely he thinks, I have some company. He puts on his boots, his big scarf and ventures out into the mist to take a closer look. Here, he can see that some are eating each other. Tiny pieces of bloody, frog flesh scattered on the banks; heads, limbs, torsos, guts. He winces. A metallic smell fills the air. He turns away, queasy, stunned by the carnage.
To calm his nerves, Dale walks down to the loch at the bottom of the hill, digging his heels into the earth so as not to slip. When he arrives, he notices another retreat attendee on the bank. She is collecting sea-glass, meticulously, and creating small totems of different shapes and sizes. He doesn’t go closer for fear of interrupting her ‘process’, but sits down on the pebbled shore and watches at a distance. The wind slaps his face. He puts his hood up.
Later that evening, he meets his container neighbour. They exchange small talk about the incessant rain, and about his neighbour’s research project on fermentation and radical politics. Dale tells him about the frogs. “Oh” he replies, “that’s an act of desperation. Frogs are carnivorous. But they will eat each other as a last resort, if other options are too scarce. There aren’t enough bugs anymore.”
***
Dale arrives back in the city, bringing Covid with him. A gift from his time away. He has to self-isolate and take more annual leave. His legs burn, he has high fever and his head and shoulders hurt so much, he is unable to put them down on a pillow. He has to sleep propped upright, in a fortress of blankets.
He feels as if his eyes are popping out of their sockets, globulous, hard to focus and close. His brow and neck clammy with sweat. He lies awake, obsessed by frogs and what humans have done to their world. He balances his phone on his knees, and opens Google.
He drowns in facts about amphibians:
- There is evidence that frogs have roamed the Earth for more than 200 million years, at least as long as the dinosaurs.
- The world’s largest frog is the Goliath frog of West Africa — it can grow to 15 inches and weigh up to 7 pounds.
- Frogs live on every continent except for Antarctica.
***
Back at the office, his colleagues ask him how the retreat was, did he get lots of writing done. Dale changes the subject, as he did not. They go out for drinks and he tells them about the frogs. They grimace and laugh, but Dale doesn’t.
That winter is one of the wettest on record. Every day, Dale sets his alarm clock for 5am, and tries to continue working on his novel. He listens to ‘The Good Writing’ podcast on his commute and writes his morning pages in his notes app. After work, he attends ‘meet the publisher’ workshops and ‘creating better characters’ masterclasses. When he shares his writing in feedback sessions, it is ripped apart by the other authors. Back home, Dale watches a damp patch grow on his bedroom ceiling. He is reminded of the frogs. Some nights he dreams that he is growing gills. He is haunted by their pieces, scattered on the bog, and wishes he could put them back together.
Melanie Hering is a European Creative Writing and Arts Facilitator based in London. She loves making things with people and hearing their stories.
Patreon makes Every Day Fiction possible.
