An American in Asia: His Quest for Cosmic Truth (or at least a Decent Espresso)

 

Frog vs Tractor

A couple months ago, a frog moved in.

Out on the porch of our tropical island home, where we hang our clothes to dry between monsoons, we keep a plastic bucket of clothespins hanging on the line. One day, we found a tree frog in it.

Mindful of the fact that we are sharing this planet with the frogs, we let him stay and we're always careful about dropping pins in the bucket when he's there. He doesn't seem to mind our reaching in occasionally to dig out a few clothespins and we certainly don't mind him making a dent in the mosquito population.

After a few weeks we began to realize he's kind of an odd little guy. Every evening about the time the crickets start chirping, he begins to stir. His skin darkens to a night forest green and the horizontal slits of his pupils dilate to large onyx orbs.

Sometimes, if he's lucky, he gets a free meal before heading out for the hunt, when some insect attracted by our porch lights happens to land in his bucket. He'll chew on that for a bit, then he climbs up to the edge of the bucket. He'll perch there for a few minutes, then he launches himself across to stick to the side of a pillar.

Then it's down to the ground, where he does one of two things. Either he makes a beeline for a giant field, some 40 meters away across a road, or he hops around behind the house where he spends the night outside our bedroom window. We know when he's there because we'll hear an occasional burp that somehow sounds like it came out of a frog just his size.

The next morning usually, though not always, he's returned to the bucket, finding his way unerringly back from the field, and onto our porch. Sometimes he disappears for two or three days, but he always comes back. I wasn't aware that frogs have a homing instinct, but apparently they do.

He's been doing this going on three months now. I've gotten used to seeing him there in his bucket. Honestly, if he disappeared for good, I know I'd mourn the little guy. When he's there, I check him out several times a day and I've discerned a rather wide array of moods that seem to show on his face.

In general, he's meditative and composed, his eyes narrowed to slits, an aura of profundity exuding from the bucket. Other days he looks a little disturbed, perhaps about events of the previous evening. Often he seems to be inwardly laughing at something (probably the hairless monkey that keeps checking on him).

Just before he's ready to head out for an evening of fun, his breathing quickens, his eyes dilate into large black globes and he sits tense and poised, listening to the chirping of his quarry.

Some days he comes back thin and bony from an unsuccessful hunt, perhaps distracted by some female, but most days he comes back fat, with a satisfied smirk on his face.

Two weeks ago he came back wounded. He looked more than a little distressed and a flap of skin had been peeled from nearly a quarter of his back, exposing muscle and fat tissue beneath.

My wife looked over at the dirt drive where a tractor was razing the way for cement and concluded the frog had been run over by the tractor. She's right about most things, so I believed it. It must have been a terrific collision: several tons of tractor vs a couple grams of frog. That puts him right up there with Ulysses in my book.

We kept a close eye on him for a few days. If it looked like an infection was setting in, I had a plan to administer some diluted antibiotic ointment with a dropper. I was hesitant to try it, as I don't know the effects of human antibiotics on frogs.

In the end, didn't have to worry about it. He never stopped going out while he was recovering and after a couple weeks, there was only a little scar tissue to show for his adventure. I guess frogs have their own ways of dealing with tractor wounds.

The road was finished this morning, so he doesn't have to evade tractors anymore. He can go back to evading cobras, kraits, vine snakes, and the terriers from next door.

I used to worry when he disappeared for a few days, but since his brush with tractor death I've got more confidence in him. In a way he's given me the gift of perspective. Next to his adventures, my human problems - military coups, visa applications, deadbeat developers owing me money - don't seem so insurmountable. If that frog can fight a tractor, then maybe I have a chance against the system.