It’s bad enough being a prince, thought the frog, without looking like this. He burped involuntarily, more like a toad. All I want is someone to love me. Someone who is not grabbing for my money, or greedy for my estates. Someone who will curl up with me by the fire like a lazy dog and be happy just to be. With me. But when you look like this, they will only love you for your money, and if you don’t hand it over in one go, they’ll take it in instalments. Until something better comes along. A gobbet of slime ran down his cheek. He was a hurt little frog, with no more lust for life. He was going to end it all. He was going to hop across the road with the sign up saying caution, frogs. Or it may have been toads, the graphic was ambiguous. A lot of princes had been flattened on that road. And he knew why they did it. A life without love is insupportable.
He bounded up from the water’s edge, through the long grass, and stayed hidden there while he sized up the scene. Nothing coming yet. If I just go a little further up the road, by the bend, I can jump out before they see me. It’ll be too late to stop. And he thought of all the girls he had wanted to love, all smooth and retouched, like in magazines. And he thought of the price they had charged, and their scornful looks. He was all the more determined to go through with it. It felt like relief at last.
Through the rasping itch of the long grass he made his way in little leaps to the corner, where the cars came round the bend too fast to stop, and he lay in wait for the instrument of his release to approach. A touch of reflux croaked in his throat. He swallowed. A car was coming. He poked his nose out of the grass, bided his time, held his breath, the car drew nearer, he tensed, the car was bigger now, he jumped, three long leaps it took to put him on the road, but he had mistimed it, the wheels raced by on the tarmac where he wasn’t, and he was left there, looking rather foolish. The old lady across the road trimming her roses looked at him with pity, and he slunk back into the long grass, to plan his next attempt. This time he wasn’t going to miss.
The sound of a heavy diesel engine could be heard nearing from the crossroads by the pub, and he braced himself. This one would be easier to time. It was a dead cert. Much more cumbersome, slower round the bends, an outright kill with no doubts. An eight-wheeler, it couldn’t miss, He made his lunge, and got knocked sideways by the front wheels, but it had barely grazed him in heavy goods terms, and he lay there in the gully, stunned, but largely unbroken, in his body at least. The old lady over the road had seen it all, and dashed out of her garden. She picked him up, looked at him softly, carried him back to her house, where she kept him comfortable in a damp flannel warmed under the hot tap. She did not leave him for a moment until he began to stir, when she lifted him gently and took him out to her pond in the back garden. She placed him carefully in the mud around the edge, and waited for him to make up his mind where to go.
But he didn’t go anywhere. He just sat there, looking up at her wrinkled face, her rough, generous hands, and he saw a beauty there that was undemanding, unretouched, and he breathed deeply, without nervously belching, and looked some more, while a slow ooze of slime made its way down his cheek. The old lady looked back at him, and saw not royalty, but a frog, or a toad, and loved him just the same. And he could see that, and realised that all this time, he had been seeking the wrong kind of love. The kind that doesn’t exist for a prince. A love without ego, a love without demand.
The old lady sat a long time watching him, to see if he would go and hide in the reeds, or dive into the pond and away, but he didn’t, so she waited till she was sure he was still breathing, and fully fit, and then with a last look over her shoulder at him, went back to her house, calling the dog to follow her. Come on, Prince!
Poor bastard, thought the frog. I’d rather be a toad.