Fire walk, froglet
Getting on the N10 from High St Ken next to me was Bob from Twin Peaks. Long, lank grey hair. Buttoned denim jacket. Maddening eyes, a can of Stella tucked into the bum of his tracksuit trousers. He sat upstairs in the chair one up from me, next to an uncomfortable child of David, in his late 20s. Slick hair, brown suede jacket clearly new. Bob from Twin Peaks cracked open his Stella and so the journey, which would be over an hour, began. After the time it had taken me to read a Borges short story, the bus had filled entirely- Friday night's indulgers looking for a bit of A to B, like. Bob perked up. He was looking at the guy next to him, kept turning around to stare out the black kid in white denim listening to his iPod. The kid stared right on back, Bob from Twin Peaks turned back pretty quickly but it wasn't long before he was looking again. Bob from Twin Peaks started muttering to himself, at first unintelligable ramblings washed down with unsavoury lager. Soon, Bob from Twin Peaks was talking coherantly to himself, spying conversation starters in his surroundings. He pointed, transfixed by the cameras which were embedded into the bus ceiling. Equally doubting and unaware of himself, his presence in this shared reality- he seemed caught on impulse and the nostalgia for what should have been recollection, the present sliding irrevocably to the past: one's finger never quite on the pulse, as it were. Bob from Twin Peaks was rapt somewhere else. The jewish boy next to him was finding it hard not to occassionally spare a glance, however scared or repulsed, for Bob from Twin Peaks, when he wasn't looking his way- drawn either toward the confident black kid (obviously not a Lynch fan) and the four attractive girls who had just got on the number 10 nightbus and had taken their seats in the row two up from me. At this point, I had forgotten all about Borges.
After a week of some considerable amphibeanocide, I had made peace with the knowledge that only two froglets remained. Of these, one was a tiny but adorable four legged creature, whose tail had now fully receded. This beautiful froglet is the size of my little fingernail. The other 'survivor's development, however, has proved a little more problematic. For the past fortnight, it's grown bigger and bigger, but seems lodged forever, caught like a fat bumblebee in sticky conserve, in that phase of their development where they have both legs and a tail. But no arms. So, he's just a giant tadpole with legs, the size of my thumbnail. However, this mornings inspection and filming revealed from out of the watery ether a third froglet, looking as healthy as anything. This is a reward, a beautiful moment.
After a week of some considerable amphibeanocide, I had made peace with the knowledge that only two froglets remained. Of these, one was a tiny but adorable four legged creature, whose tail had now fully receded. This beautiful froglet is the size of my little fingernail. The other 'survivor's development, however, has proved a little more problematic. For the past fortnight, it's grown bigger and bigger, but seems lodged forever, caught like a fat bumblebee in sticky conserve, in that phase of their development where they have both legs and a tail. But no arms. So, he's just a giant tadpole with legs, the size of my thumbnail. However, this mornings inspection and filming revealed from out of the watery ether a third froglet, looking as healthy as anything. This is a reward, a beautiful moment.