Fire in their eyes- Week 3 of Brigits Flame
She picks up the toad. It is never difficult catching them; they are slow and clunky as toy tanks. Long skinny ones with yellowish sandpapery skin or short fat warty ones mottled in brown and black, she likes them equally. If she times it right she can be there when a batch of tadpoles metamorphosize, and watch hundreds of tiny perfect toads the size of fingernails emerge from water.
Toads love it when it rains. Cars are a real problem as the toads congregate on the wet asphalt or cluster in mud puddles to mate; she is saddened to see their flattened corpses after a downpour.
She holds this latest toad up, inspecting it.The trick is to hold them facing away when capturing them, as they pee when alarmed. Every toad is different, its skin a unique topographical map. It has puffed itself up bigger, another trick to scare predators.
Her favorite thing about toads are their eyes- great translucent orbs with sidewise black slits, radiant with fire. She looks into the toad’s mysterious, unblinking eye. Why is beauty wasted on such a homely creature- what purpose does it serve, that their eyes are filled with a conflagration of golden coins, bronze shards, coppery flecks of mica? I guess it doesn't matter why. It just is.
She puts the toad down. It sits for a moment, slowly deflating, then hops away under the damp ferns.