Frog Lake

He sometimes confused torsion and tension. Climatic and climactic. Centripetal and centrifugal. Corporal and corporeal. Viscous and vicious. But the frogs didn’t care.

Ribbit, they said, regardless.

Ribbit.

At the lake, he juggled. Or tried to. He wasn’t good. The sun blazed. He tried to juggle four stones, then three. The trick, he told himself, was to find stones that are roughly the same size and weight. When stones are of different sizes and weights, they are hard to juggle. That was pretty much the extent of his juggling knowledge.

He tried to juggle three stones, and one by one the stones returned to the earth, where they belonged. Being airborne was not their bag.

Ribbit, said the frogs.

Was he despairing? Was he in denial? Was he in mourning? Was he allergic to fun? Was he despondent? Was he partial to rigatoni? Was he a friend to the honeybees? Was he tired? Was he sick? Was he on the highway to the danger zone? Was he tired? Was he prone to repeating himself?

The lake was viscous.

The lake wasn’t viscous. He just wanted to describe it, and the word viscous came to mind.

He thought if he could describe the lake—like, really capture its essence in words—then that would be something. If he had nothing else going on in his life, nothing else to show for his existence on the planet, no kids, no inventions, no hit Hollywood films, no mysterious ice-core samples, no hot-air balloons, no cozy mysteries, no freshly cracked cold cases, no international ballistic missile treaties, no cures for previously incurable diseases, then he would at least have that: an apt description of the lake, of Frog Lake, one that captured its essence in words.

That would really be something.

Frog Lake wasn’t Frog Lake’s official name. It was the name he had given to the lake, which, as far as he knew, didn’t have an official name. Folks just called it the lake. Or the puddle. Or the spit. Or the cesspool. Or the bath. Or the sauna. Or the bacteria trap. Or the lagoon.

You might think he named it Frog Lake on account of all the frogs at the lake. And you would be correct in that assumption. You must be some kind of detective.

An apt description of the lake would not be complete without a detailed accounting of all the frogs, even though the frogs didn’t spend all their time in the lake. Sometimes they would just kind of hang out on the shore, amid the thistles and watercress, and watch the world spin.

Ribbit, said the frogs.

Sometimes he would talk to the frogs. He’d ask them questions. Or he would just make observations. What a day, huh? he would say. What a gorgeous goddamn day.

He wrote: Frog Lake is. He crossed that out. And then he wrote: Frog Lake is.