Tadpoles
Can't sleep at night. Thinking of several things aside my exam which is in several hours, and my feet which are freaking cold.
I'm thinking about the days that I used to play in the mud after the rain. There was a large grass field right in front of my house and whenever it rained all the sand turned into mud. I would then faithfully head there barefooted and walk right into the pools of water. Joining me would be a hundred or so frogs croaking away, possibly fucking one another and squirting billions of sperm into the water that I just stepped into, creating little babies we humans call tadpoles.
Sometimes when I had the mood I would take with me a glass bottle to catch a few tadpoles. The favourite seemed to be those jam jars that mum always chucked into the bin. I loved them; they were clear and resembled a tiny aquarium to view all the unfortunate specimens that Mr. Hyde had fished out evilly from the pools.
I never caught it with a net; the favoured method of capturing tadpoles was to use my hands. I was really good at it. You'd place your hand on the mud and lay there as still as a log of wood, waiting for the tadpoles to swim onto your hand. You then lifted the tadpole out of its watery habitat and slipped it into your jam-jar-prison. Sometimes I'd use the finger-waving method; I'll move my fingers like little tentacles to encourage the tadpoles to swim into my palms and then SNAP. Another victim for the jam-jar-prison.
Occasionally I'll find more than just tadpoles. Sometimes, disgusting creepy worms would come up to the surface when their burrows were drowned with water and I always thought that the reason for them emerging was because they liked to swim. Needless to say I’ve drowned many worms but that’s another story I shall not elaborate here. Other than that I’d find crickets, grasshoppers, mosquito larvae and weird beetles which I never knew the names of. Some were easy prey to my nimble boy fingers, but some were just too quick that it was more enjoyable looking at them swimming in the pools of water than actually catching them. I'll catch a few of the creatures I found interesting and put them together with the tadpoles, yank a handful of grass and chuck it inside to keep the tadpoles happy and trot back to the house with my catch of the day
Some of the tadpoles would grow right into adulthood and become frogs, which I later released back into the field. Mum always said that it was cruel to kill the frogs as not many make it to adulthood. The reason I put them back, however, was because they were no longer interesting to look at and just hopped around inside the jam jar like little bastards.
There used to also be many drainage pipes that formed a huge network under the field. In the tropics where I live, rain is abundant. You'll either see lots of it or none of it. There's no such thing as a pathetic drizzle like the ones we have in Victoria. When it rains, it really pours.
So the local council decided to build drainage pipes to channel all the excess water that accumulated in the field to avoid algal growth and mud (the field was also used for football so drainage was important to keep the pitch in tip-top condition for the hoards of ugly Malay men who came to play ball every evening). Because the field was raised, i.e. higher than road level, there was a slope that ran all around its perimeter and the pipes would point right out of these slopes and straight into the drains that were built to encircle the field. Sometimes there was so much of water coming out from these pipes that a kid like me would be fascinated enough to stand under one of them and take a bath.
No such thing as worrying about microbes or deadly chemicals those days. If there was anything that would have killed you, it was curiosity.
I loved it, cold water all splashing around me. And this was no ordinary water; it was rain water that had filtered through the layers and layers of earth. It was crystal clear, had no odour to it and was the sort of colour you would get from water right out of your household tap. I'd run along the little waterfalls that formed along the edge of the park (and yes, there were dozens and dozens of them) and put my head under those weird pipes to give my hair a nice wash. Top that up with mud on my feet and a jam jar full of tadpoles in my right hand... I was the luckiest and happiest kid to be alive.
Except when mummy spanked me for catching a cold, that is.
And when I started growing up, so did the city around that park. I no longer played in the mud or caught tadpoles. I'd hide indoors when it rained, because it was miserable. I would curse at the sky at the slightest tinge of darkness and I would complain when my jeans were soiled with mud.
I became an adult when I was 10. I hated the simple pleasures in life and couldn't laugh and play like a kid any longer.
But now as I approach my 20th birthday I find myself walking through the rain again. Funny how life little surprises sometimes seems so irrelevant, so inconspicuous that you miss sight of it.
I don't mind the rain falling all over me anymore. Nor the 10 degree air in Victoria that comes with it. I'd play in pools of water if there were any, but the stupid sky in Australia will never oblige to send down enough torrents to fill even the shallowest of pools.
And they don't have frogs coming out and singing after the rain here too.
How I miss those formative years, those days of playing in the mud as if there was nothing more important in the whole wide world other than getting your clothes soiled your hair filled with muck and weird creepy worms crawling all over your skin.
It was a time when all that ever mattered was to be happy; to be able to enjoy what I had and make the best out of a storm, even if it meant getting your head wet with drain water.
I'm thinking about the days that I used to play in the mud after the rain. There was a large grass field right in front of my house and whenever it rained all the sand turned into mud. I would then faithfully head there barefooted and walk right into the pools of water. Joining me would be a hundred or so frogs croaking away, possibly fucking one another and squirting billions of sperm into the water that I just stepped into, creating little babies we humans call tadpoles.
Sometimes when I had the mood I would take with me a glass bottle to catch a few tadpoles. The favourite seemed to be those jam jars that mum always chucked into the bin. I loved them; they were clear and resembled a tiny aquarium to view all the unfortunate specimens that Mr. Hyde had fished out evilly from the pools.
I never caught it with a net; the favoured method of capturing tadpoles was to use my hands. I was really good at it. You'd place your hand on the mud and lay there as still as a log of wood, waiting for the tadpoles to swim onto your hand. You then lifted the tadpole out of its watery habitat and slipped it into your jam-jar-prison. Sometimes I'd use the finger-waving method; I'll move my fingers like little tentacles to encourage the tadpoles to swim into my palms and then SNAP. Another victim for the jam-jar-prison.
Occasionally I'll find more than just tadpoles. Sometimes, disgusting creepy worms would come up to the surface when their burrows were drowned with water and I always thought that the reason for them emerging was because they liked to swim. Needless to say I’ve drowned many worms but that’s another story I shall not elaborate here. Other than that I’d find crickets, grasshoppers, mosquito larvae and weird beetles which I never knew the names of. Some were easy prey to my nimble boy fingers, but some were just too quick that it was more enjoyable looking at them swimming in the pools of water than actually catching them. I'll catch a few of the creatures I found interesting and put them together with the tadpoles, yank a handful of grass and chuck it inside to keep the tadpoles happy and trot back to the house with my catch of the day
Some of the tadpoles would grow right into adulthood and become frogs, which I later released back into the field. Mum always said that it was cruel to kill the frogs as not many make it to adulthood. The reason I put them back, however, was because they were no longer interesting to look at and just hopped around inside the jam jar like little bastards.
There used to also be many drainage pipes that formed a huge network under the field. In the tropics where I live, rain is abundant. You'll either see lots of it or none of it. There's no such thing as a pathetic drizzle like the ones we have in Victoria. When it rains, it really pours.
So the local council decided to build drainage pipes to channel all the excess water that accumulated in the field to avoid algal growth and mud (the field was also used for football so drainage was important to keep the pitch in tip-top condition for the hoards of ugly Malay men who came to play ball every evening). Because the field was raised, i.e. higher than road level, there was a slope that ran all around its perimeter and the pipes would point right out of these slopes and straight into the drains that were built to encircle the field. Sometimes there was so much of water coming out from these pipes that a kid like me would be fascinated enough to stand under one of them and take a bath.
No such thing as worrying about microbes or deadly chemicals those days. If there was anything that would have killed you, it was curiosity.
I loved it, cold water all splashing around me. And this was no ordinary water; it was rain water that had filtered through the layers and layers of earth. It was crystal clear, had no odour to it and was the sort of colour you would get from water right out of your household tap. I'd run along the little waterfalls that formed along the edge of the park (and yes, there were dozens and dozens of them) and put my head under those weird pipes to give my hair a nice wash. Top that up with mud on my feet and a jam jar full of tadpoles in my right hand... I was the luckiest and happiest kid to be alive.
Except when mummy spanked me for catching a cold, that is.
And when I started growing up, so did the city around that park. I no longer played in the mud or caught tadpoles. I'd hide indoors when it rained, because it was miserable. I would curse at the sky at the slightest tinge of darkness and I would complain when my jeans were soiled with mud.
I became an adult when I was 10. I hated the simple pleasures in life and couldn't laugh and play like a kid any longer.
But now as I approach my 20th birthday I find myself walking through the rain again. Funny how life little surprises sometimes seems so irrelevant, so inconspicuous that you miss sight of it.
I don't mind the rain falling all over me anymore. Nor the 10 degree air in Victoria that comes with it. I'd play in pools of water if there were any, but the stupid sky in Australia will never oblige to send down enough torrents to fill even the shallowest of pools.
And they don't have frogs coming out and singing after the rain here too.
How I miss those formative years, those days of playing in the mud as if there was nothing more important in the whole wide world other than getting your clothes soiled your hair filled with muck and weird creepy worms crawling all over your skin.
It was a time when all that ever mattered was to be happy; to be able to enjoy what I had and make the best out of a storm, even if it meant getting your head wet with drain water.
Fell from the sky at 12:03 PM
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