Of Frogs and Men
by
Bruce Costello
There’s
not a
cloud to be seen. The brown grass has a hopeless, despairing look, as if afraid
it will never be green again. The forest is motionless, and seems to be peeping
out through its leaves, expecting something awful to happen. A hawk rises from
the almost dry creek that runs between the railway line and the roadway, a frog
dangling from its beak.
Mr
Lamb is beginning
the journey into town for his annual haircut. His wife has escorted him to the
bus stop. She gives him money to cover the fares there and back, plus $25.00 to
pay the barber. She instructs him to come straight home afterwards, as there’s work
to be done around the farm. Mr Lamb boards the bus and his wife returns home on
foot.
*
At the
barber's shop, a radio program is blaring from a speaker mounted
high up a wall. The barber is working on someone’s head while Mr Lamb and a few
other men await their turn on bench seats around the walls.
On the
radio, a sociologist is being interviewed about climate change.
"Can you
please explain to our listeners what you mean by Boiled
Frog Syndrome," the announcer is saying.
"Sure
thing," replies the sociologist, who sounds like
an American wearing a bow tie. "Boiled Frog Syndrome is based on the demonstrably
fallacious notion that, if you place a frog in boiling water, it'll jump out,
but if you place it in cold water and apply heat slowly, the frog will fail to
perceive the danger and will be boiled to death."
"So, ah, it's about not
recognising, or failing to deal with a problem, and by the time you do, it's
too late to avert disaster?" asks the announcer.
"Exactly,
dead in the water," replies the learned man
with a learned chuckle. "The same principle operates in other areas of life,
too, like in relationships, as I expect some of your listeners will know only
too well."
One of
the waiting men, a red-faced fellow with a paunch, leaps to his
feet.
"My bloody oath!” he shouts. “A mate
of mine wanted to throw himself under a train last week but didn’t have the
guts to do it. Silly bastard had let his wife run his life for forty years, and
by the time he realised what was happening, it was too late. The poor bugger.
He’d completely lost his mojo. Couldn’t even do himself in. Bossy bloody
women!"
"It's not a gender problem,"
says the radio announcer, as if in
answer to the fat man. "It's a people problem. It's what people do to
people."
“Yes, indeed,” agrees the sociologist.
“And it’s common in marriages today. The controlling spouse isolates the
subordinate spouse and whittles away at them until they’ve got little left of
themselves. It’s destruction of another person’s individuality, a kind of soul
murder, you could say.”
The barber
quickly turns the radio off as if he’s heard enough, and
knows it all, anyway. He finishes the head he’s been working on, takes the man’s
money and sees him to the door.
Mr Lamb is next in line. The
barber turns to him.
Mr Lamb
is gaping open-mouthed and wide-eyed at the silent wall speaker,
as if a revelation had been delivered to his head without warning. A
thunderbolt from a clear blue sky.
The barber helps Mr Lamb into the
chair, asking how his day is going, but he seems not to hear and doesn’t reply.
Once seated, Mr Lamb stares at the mirror on the wall in front of him. His eyes
are hardly blinking. They seem to focus on some distant horizon far beyond the mirror.
The Barber
sets to work removing a year’s growth from Mr Lamb’s head.
When the
arduous task is completed, he holds out his palm. Mr Lamb drops
money in it and runs from the shop.
It is lunchtime.
The footpath is full of people.
Mr Lamb
heads in the direction of the bus stop, half walking, half
running, with a strange rolling gait, brushing against others crowding the footpath.
They move quickly aside, swearing and muttering. Mr Lamb appears not to notice.
He wrinkles
his brow oddly, like a man with strange thoughts buzzing about
his brain, in the way that blowflies buzz about a poo pile.
Perhaps
seeking to escape the swarm, he suddenly enters a tavern, looking
about as if he’s never been in a tavern before. Discerning a bar with a barman,
he feels in his back pocket, finds some money, and buys a beer.
Three men
are seated around a table, talking loudly, and laughing. One
glances up at Mr Lamb and pulls out a chair.
“Come
and join us, mate.”
Mr Lamb
sits at the table and drinks his beer. The three men are talking
about fishing, rugby, and cars. Mr Lamb looks out of place, like someone who doesn’t
fish, doesn’t follow the rugby and doesn’t drive.
A bull-headed
man without a neck who looks like a football player asks Mr
Lamb whether he’s a Ford or a Holden man. Mr Lamb opens his mouth, but no words
emerge. He looks wildly about the room.
There is a large TV on the wall.
On the screen, Mr Lamb sees his wife. She is seated behind a desk reading a breaking
news item about an atomic bomb exploding over New Zealand and killing a whole lot
of people.
Then he
sees his wife leap from the TV onto the floor of the tavern. With
her long-nosed face and her opening and shutting beak , she resembles a terrifying
bird looking for someone to devour.
Mr Lamb
throws up his hands in horror as he suddenly realises what he
has done. He has spent some of his bus money on buying a beer.
He doesn’t
notice how the other men at the table are now staring at him wide-eyed,
nor how the barman is watching him. He doesn’t see the barman pick up the phone.
He doesn’t hear the siren coming, nor notice how it grows louder and then stops
abruptly. He doesn’t see a paramedic run into the tavern, talk briefly to the
barman then approach the table. But he does look up when the man taps him on
the shoulder.
The paramedic
has a face like the bum of a baboon and hands the size of baseball
gloves, but Mr Lamb seems reassured by his gentle manner.
“You
don’t look too good, Sir. Would you like to come with me, and we’ll
find a quiet space to have a chat? Maybe there is something you will permit me
to assist you with.”
They drive
to the ambulance station and the paramedic sits Mr Lamb down
in a pleasant room, where he finds his voice and the two of them talk for a while,
but not about anything in particular.
Mr Lamb
tells the paramedic he has no money to catch the bus home, whereupon
the kind man opens his wallet and passes over a $20 note. Mr Lamb thanks him
profusely, departs and hurries to the bus stop.
Half an
hour later, when he disembarks from the bus and is about to begin
the short walk back to the farm, he sees, stomping towards him, the identical huge
bird that had terrified him in the tavern. This time she is breathing fire and
making ghastly noises.
Fortunately,
there’s a train coming from the other direction, and it
looks like the train will arrive first.
There
is only one
thing to do.
And
Mr Lamb does
it .
*
His
wife arrives on
the scene just as Mr Lamb’s head, complete with new $25 haircut, flies out from
under a wheel of the train, to splatter against her left leg, completely ruining
her nylon stockings.
And somewhere
nearby a frog croaks.
