Tadpole

Having a bath. A necessary task but the water is lukewarm.

I get naked and get in. Water up to the navel.

The water is rather murky and unwholesome. But I'm determined to have a bath.

I notice with a creepy feeling that darting about in the water are four or five tadpoles. Swimming around my hindquarters and thighs.

I catch ahold of one of the tadpoles, bring it up to the side of the bath and squash its head against the rim. Leaves a slimy stain.

Its transparent tail remains. Disgusting.

I shout feebly to my mother behind the locked door about the tadpoles in the bath.

"Don't kill the tadpoles".

I catch the largest remaining tadpole. Which is so big as to have developed frog features.

I put it in a jar and transfer it to the bathroom sink. A towel round myself.

And when the sink empties it leaves a ring round the basin. And a gurgle in the plug.

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(Latest news from central Africa: The Strawberry Republic has been declared.)