A frog in a shining armor

Source: Google Images

She looked woefully at the sky above. All she could see was a patch of depressing gray from where she sat. Her patience was wearing out, but did she have a choice? She wondered about what awaited her after this.  Her optimism was as shallow as the water in the drying well, where she was now confined to.  Unlike those days when the height of her optimism was brimming high, just like the overflowing well that it was back then, when she had started her journey of self discovery, that had led her to land into the hell of a well.

She gave yet another disgusted look at her shiny green skin. Was she so jinxed?  No matter what she did, it just backfired and brought her to yet another obstacle to surpass, yet another challenge to combat. How else do you explain, waiting all your life to kiss a frog that you expect might turn into your prince charming but instead the kiss turned you into a frog too?! She had resignedly accepted her fate when her ethereal human beauty turned into a slob of slimy green, hopping, croaking amphibian after that horrid spell of a kiss that not only changed her life but also her very species. She settled down with her life partner – her supposed knight in shining green thick-skinned armor, who rode her into the scenic setting sun only to land them both into a waterhole well of doom. Her knight soon succumbed to a severe drought, leaving her stranded in the middle of a drying well.

Today she sat perched on the highest rock in the well; gazing longingly at the sky up there – her only connect with the world she had left behind. The world that was just perfect when she had left it to settle in the depth of the well. If only she had not believed in the stories. Especially, the ones that talked about frogs turning into princes and knights in shining armor rescuing you from the cruel clutches of the world, riding away with you on a white horse in the idyllic setting sun. Ha! No such thing happens in real life. But the realization had struck late. Now, all she waited was to get out of the shackles of the well by her sheer determination and womanly prowess. She had to be her own ‘Knight Frog in a shining armor’ and save herself.

She winked a little harder at him today. And finally, he gave in and smiled back at her after days of resisting her charm. He sat on the boundary wall of the well, as usual, aimlessly throwing pebbles into the well, while he glanced at her from time to time. Her admirer from childhood days, whose love she had turned down mercilessly, only because he wasn’t the handsome prince and the knight in shining armor she had imagined her suitor to be. Of course, he did not recognize her in her frog avatar. But who knows, if she persisted with her flirtatious ways, he might just pull her out of the well someday. And maybe he would just kiss her back to her human form. Maybe.