“Oh, look,” I said to myself while walking down the road the other day, “that little toad is enjoying this sunny morning as much as I am.”
I pulled out my camera to snap a few photos of the fella. He was wonderfully cooperative, remaining stiller than still while I worked away, changing angles to get more than just side shots. (Who knows why I thought several perspectives of a toad on the side of the road were necessary.)
Eventually, I decided to nudge him a bit and coax his nose away from the curb and toward the camera. His skin was dry to my touch, and his body unnaturally light. Suddenly the crusty shell of the toad skittered accross the pavement.
Holy smokes, the critter was hollow, as empty on the inside as a forty-year-old homecoming queen whose life peaked the day she received her tiara and sash. No wonder he’d been so patient and cooperative during our studio session.
For the next two days, his little shell graced the edge of the road. When I walked by it, the memory of his potato chip crisp skin returned. I shuddered and wondered how he ended up devoid of inner anything. Did a special breed of vampires stalk the dark night and suck out his toad juice? Had the long winter left him so Vitamin D deficient that he spend too long soaking up sun to? Did he eat a bad mushroom that gave him explosive toad stools? Do I really want to know what happened?
I think not. The whole sordid episode creeps me out. And I don’t like to think about how this scenario might play out. First, it’s a toad without innards by the side of the road. Next it’ll be a Trojan horse in the park, and we all know what happened the last time one of those showed up.
No way am I going to become a character in some weird new novel where Fun with Frog and Toad and the Twilight series intersect. No way do I want anyone to mistake my beauty for Helen of Troy and start a war. (Okay, so that one’s a little far-fetched, but stranger things have happened.) No way am I going to put my country at risk. From now on, I’m giving overly cooperative and completely hollow animals on my walking path a wide berth.
Hollow toads by the side of the road. Yick!
