The View from the Curb

If you pressed your nose to the worn, damp curb along Willow Lane — the kind of curb that is slightly chipped, like teeth that have chewed too many secrets — you might see nothing at all. Just a shiver of water spinning in a shallow groove, an old leaf clinging to a pebble, maybe the streak of a worm dashing out of morning light.

But if you were patient, you might notice a shape lurking in those shivers. Green. Smaller than the scoop of your hand, but steadier. Two gold-flecked eyes just above the waterline, perfectly still except for the tiniest flick of a throat.

That would be me. Roger of Willow Lane. At your service, not that anyone ever has need of a frog’s services these days.

The world of humans thunders above me. Shoes slap and scrape, cars snarl, a basketball thumps against driveway cement in urgent thuds. If you are careful — and I am nothing if not careful — you can survive at the edge of things here, just between the worlds. You can even, sometimes, learn from listening.

Today, I wedge myself beneath the stormdrain’s rusty fin, my belly tamped cool by the stone, my mind alert. Through the grid of the curb, I have the perfect view of what the city calls progress. I call it catastrophe.

There is a new sign propped lopsided on the grass across the lane. Blue, with large letters:

WILLOW TOWNHOMES: LUXURY LIVING COMING SOON

A lie, if any frog has ever heard one. The only thing coming soon is trouble.

Already, the crust at the edge of my pond is pitted with tires. Great yellow monsters with swinging metal jaws and paint the color of dandelions. They groan, beep, and hiss, swallowing earth in greedy gulps while men in orange vests shout across the noise.

“I told you, Larry, check the southern edge for that pipe—”

“There’s something under the stone by the old willow roots. See if it’s clear.”

Words, so many words, bouncing between puddles like heavy hail. They might puzzle another creature, but not me. I have a knack — a curse, some nights — for understanding human talk. Every word skitters over my skin, sinking in like the way sunlight soaks through pond water. I don’t know why, exactly. My mother said it was ‘the old frog magic.’ My father insisted it was from eating too many lost homework assignments floating in rain. Either way, I listen, and I know.

Not that it does much good. No matter how clever a frog is, when the machines come, there’s not a lot you can shout that anyone hears. And from the look of things, shouting would only put more trouble at my door.

I inch a little closer to the curb’s rim, cloaked by my patch of shadow. From here, I can see all of Willow Lane. Small houses — some peeling turquoise, some with porches like crooked smiles — line the street. Sprigs of summer’s last dandelions press bravely through cracked walkways. Everything hums: the slow, restless sigh of a city waking up, the gust from a city bus turning the maple leaves inside out; the faint, watery call of a robin.

And me. The watcher. The ignored. The frog.

Sometimes, a child’s voice splashes into my world. This morning, it’s a new voice. Unsure, but bright.

“Charlie! Charlie? Where are you, boy?”

She’s small, this one, with braid-ends bouncing and one shoelace trailing in the mud. I keep very still, my throat tight, as she kneels at the edge of the grass where my pond once spread wide.

She opens her palm, showing a dog treat like a tiny pink bone. Her words tumble out, all hope and worry. “Come on, it’s not funny anymore.”

Her words are for someone named Charlie, but her tone is as familiar as dusk: the soft, shuddery feeling of searching for something precious that might not be found.

From my shadow, I wonder what it would be like to have someone call for me. To matter enough that someone would kneel and search, brave the muddy scents of city grass, and whisper my name into the world.

But no one calls for Roger. Not now. Not since the marsh by Willow Lane was dug up, and the dragonflies scattered, and the neighbors began locking up their gardens tight.

I watch her leave, heart heavy with something I try not to name. I scan the moving forest of human feet and shovels. I listen to the plans, the shouts, the tired sighs after lunchbreaks — all those sounds that mean more fences, less pond, more forgetting.

Marsh magic, indeed. What’s the value of magic if you’re always the only one who knows?

The sun slides behind the crooked willow. Shadows that once meant cool safety now feel long, as if time is stretching me thin. I remember the old days of thick mud and gentle frogsong at dusk, a place where stories hopped from one back to another.

Now I stare at my shrinking slice of gutter, at the painted stones tossed by children, at the glint of candy wrappers and the rumble of tires.

No one looks for frogs. No one except the crows and the hungry raccoon that pads the fence by midnight, and even then —

A movement. At the street’s edge, the girl is back. She sits on the curb, head in her hands, the treat now pocketed away. Her lips move; I hear the flutter of her breath, almost a lullaby. She is lost, not just her dog.

For a moment, I feel a gust of old magic — a wild idea, bubbling from the soles of my damp little feet. Maybe, for once, it’s time to do something more than watch. Maybe even a frog can matter.

The shadow of a machine cuts across the lane and I shrink back, heart thumping. I am clever, but I am not fearless. Yet something else trembles beneath my skin tonight: the ache for change, the sharp urge to untangle loneliness, even if just for one golden dusk.

The city rumbles. The girl sniffs, wipes her eyes, and rises. I watch her walk away, each footstep a silent question.

In the gutter, I flex my limbs and whisper, so quiet it might be only for me:

"Maybe, tomorrow, I’ll hop closer. Maybe, finally, it’s time to be seen."