Excerpt: The Summer of the Frogs

INTRO

It had gotten to the point where I was sick of crying all the time. I wanted to be over all of it. The memories that kept biting at me and stabbing me in the gut over and over. I yearned with everything I had for them to be gone.

Some days were better than others. And some times weeks would go silently by. I felt almost normal. And normal was the thing that I wanted more than any thing in the world. It was horribly unfair the things that seemed to always befall me; at least I thought so. I never did anything wrong. Played by the rules. Stayed out of trouble. All the little niceties that are expected from a person in a rational society. Yet, no matter how I tried; ill followed me around like a stray starving dog.

There comes a time where in that quest for some modicum of normalcy, that one will really do about any thing. And trying to wipe all the horror and unfairness that had befallen me, I found what I thought I was looking for. And even though I knew that when things look that perfect, they usually aren't... well, being rational is the last thing that dictates a desperate person.

As a child, I seemed absurdly blessed. Things fell into my lap at my every whim. I'd scrape out of trouble with nary a scratch. Several encounters that should've killed me didn't. Even I started to notice how insanely lucky I seemed to be, until I reached adulthood, that's when everything changed.

It took massive amounts of effort not to off myself several times. But even in the worst despair, there was something that stayed my hand, always. And I would keen with the pain of having to carry the burden of yet another day.

Some would call me insufferably self centered and cruelly selfish. Maybe so, but I never asked for anything to happen to me, whether good or bad.

So you may be asking yourself, who are you? What happened? Or any number of questions like that. I am the quiet mouse in the corner always surrounded by food yet starving. I am the first leaf to brown and drop in Fall. I am the frigid winter wind that can not be warmed. Nothing and everything has happened. It's called life and this is mine, like it or not.

You wouldn't notice me in crowd and I would never speak up. People tend to split around me, talk around me, swish and swirl around me. A stone in the creek. I wonder what it would be like to be the water. I continue to bear the friction of the stream; I can feel my surface wearing down. I can't take pride in my solidity. The water is painful against my skin.

The fact of the matter is, though, the pain is such a part of my life that I wonder if I can handle it not being there. My mother still frets for me. My brother has cast me aside. My father is long dead. In the summer of the frogs, it begins again.