All the best anthropomorphic frog stories have already been written, yet I carry on.
My favorite was the one about the would-be Olympic decathlete who unsuccessfully petitioned the IOC to recognize the swamp as a sovereign nation.
Then there was the one about the biker with a heart of gold who rode from town to town flipping over buffet tables at restaurants serving frog legs.
Or old Tom Toad who fought for the working frogs. These are Mark Twain level ideas. They might not even be my top three. I want to flesh them out, but the frog teamsters and their reflective vests have cut off access to the top presses with blockades and tiny signs. Anthropomorphic frog fiction has peaked, according to union heads, and I would only water it down. They say I don’t have the gills to push the genre forward.
I have respected their injunction.
Last night, I had an epiphany while watching my tears feather out across the pages of The Pond Also Rises. The sentient cyanobacteria market is wide open. No legs, no dialog, just blue-green lust, with a pang of regret, blooming outward to the forefront of modern literature – where the swamp meets dreams.