Growing Frogs

When I was a kid, me and my bro would go down to where the water from the nuclear power plant drained into the canal and collect buckets of frogspawn. We’d pour the gloop into an old fishtank at the bottom of the garden and watch as the little black dots grew tails and became tadpoles, swimming around in the goo. Next their legs would form, like miniature chicken drumsticks… then the double-elbowed arms with their seven-fingered hands, and the heads, the glowing eyes and the mouths with their serrated razor-sharp cutting-edges. Then finally their wings would inflate and the frogs would fly away to hunt for rats and kittens, before mating season came round and the frogspawn formed again.

Sometimes, when the tumours don’t hurt too much, I look back at my childhood fondly. It’s amazing how great things seem when you don’t know shit.