Hermedities

Hermedities knew a great many things—particularly things related to food and how to not become food.

He knew that the sky was often blue, the water clear unless it stormed, his slime-coated skin was brown and the lily pads green—at least until they died; though he may not have called the colours such things, nor named his home this way.

He knew the feeling of a summer breeze, the bite of winter frost, the pain of an empty stomach and the zing of a fresh mosquito.

He didn’t count or measure but he’d grown quite adept at knowing how near a meal needed to venture before it was worth a strike—he also knew the feeling of failure but did not stack its weight upon himself in burdensome style.

He was a machine of biology, driven to action irrespective of life's difficulties. Spawned to swim, to struggle, to survive, and never to question the meaning of it.

Hermedities was a simple frog, with a simple view of things, until he wasn’t.

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Hermedities had gained an immense breadth of knowledge—though such wisdom had failed to provide the answer as to how such a change had occurred.

He understood things now that he had never before considered. He also understood that such things were not entirely relevant for an amphibian to know—such as the fact that he was an amphibian.

He spent time contemplating the molecular structure of the fauna he resided on and the surface tension of water that lapped against its edges.

He considered light refraction and the way his whole world became a mirror at times when the wind was still and the light hit the lake just right.

He stared into that reflection and contemplated himself and how very very small he was.

He would ask himself questions he already knew had no true answers, like how he, an infinitesimal spec within the knowable universe, came to be.

Time passed, a construct he had previously been ignorant to, and he agonised over the meaning of it all.

Night fell and he gazed at the flecks of brilliant light that he now knew were the stars and he would wonder why he was granted such understanding but denied the ability to swim among them.

He used this knowledge that had been bestowed upon him to contemplate everything whilst growing ever more fatigued at the limitless nature of the task.

Eventually, as he grew weak from hunger and parched from remaining motionless on his lilipad, Hermedities resolved one of his most persistent questions—what was the meaning of it all.

The meaning was that he was and one day he would not be. Everything else he knew played no part in that fact.

Hermedities smiled his toothless frog smile knowing that when his end came, irrespective of how, he would have lived appreciating the blue of the sky.

He would remember to relish the water, be it clear or stormed-churned.

He would appreciate his slime-coated brown skin and the lily pads of vibrant green—maybe even after he died.