The Last Croak

Where Am I?

Joe woke up in a muddy mire near a small pond teeming with other critters. Joe was not a human but he thought like a human, or so he thought. He was clothed in frog skin and lived among frogs but was not one of them. He was different and knew he was different. The other frogs just stared into space with a vacuous, glazed-over look that revealed an absence of thought. Joe could think in several languages and he understood many abstract concepts. When he tried communicating with the other frogs, only inane frog noises came out of his mouth. Joe tried communicating in Morse code at one point, using his eyelids to generate the message, but the other frogs were unresponsive; they just stared into space like zombies. They were just frogs. It was curious that, for all of Joe's intellect, he was lacking in memory. Although he had a complete photographic memory and could recall in complete detail every event of the previous day, beyond that he only had vague sensations. Every morning when Joe woke up he did his morning routine of observing other frogs, attempting in vain to communicate with them, giving up at the end of the day, eating some disgusting bugs and falling asleep. He did this every day for the next 10 years.

Joe woke up and found himself on a dried out pond bed. Looking around he saw a bleak scene of dead frogs, dead fish, and dead turtles; everything was dead including the trees and vegetation. Joe wondered how long it had been this way but he could not remember. He decided to hop around and try to find anything living. Although, it was hopeless to communicate with others, he still enjoyed having them around. Joe was also very hungry and, as disgusting as he found it, needed to find some bugs to eat. Joe hopped around for a while longer in search of food but eventually gave up. When the sun went down he fell asleep only to wake up the next day and go through the exact same routine. Joe did this every day for the next 100 years.

Joe woke up and found himself on a desiccated landscape infused with large cracks. Although Joe was quite alert he was only capable of sensing his right leg move a little bit away from his body only to have it snap back to its original position. Then it moved again, and again, a process that he had no control over. His ears were still working because he could hear voices of three boys approaching. When they were in visual range one of the ragamuffins said, "Look, it's an old FrogBot!", then all three of them excitedly ran to Joe, but upon discovering that he was broken and unable to hop, one of the boys grabbed a large rock and started hitting Joe repeatedly until Joe was no longer a unit but was made non-contiguous over several yards of sere earth. Fortunately, the core of Joe was a self-contained microprocessor chip no larger than a fingernail. Unfortunately, the Joe chip toppled into a crevice, and plunged into a tenebrous void. Joe fell for the next 10 seconds.

Joe woke up and saw nothing for there was nothing to see. He could not move for he had nothing to move. He could not hear for he had nothing to hear with. It was a cruel joke that Joe was still hungry, because there was no food available and he had neither mouth nor stomach. Joe was a human now, because no sense or memory told him otherwise. Joe thought because that's all he could do. He wondered about things; wondered where he was mostly, but also dreamed about future possibilities, imagined a world full of joy and happiness, then he fell asleep only to wake up the next day and, due to having no new stimuli, had the exact same thoughts as the previous day. This happened every day for the next 1000 years.

Joe woke up in a world of nothing. He could neither see, nor move, nor hear, nor feel. He simply existed, and he was still hungry. He was so very hungry and couldn't understand why he had no mouth. Then there was a vibration and the earth shifted a little bit and Joe shifted with it. Joe sensed it; knew that his orientation had changed just enough to kick him out of his 1000 year loop of thinking the same thoughts. Joe was excited; he knew something had changed. He couldn't wait to see what new thoughts and ideas would cascade through his mind. He hadn't felt this happy and excited for 1000 years. Then the earth shifted a little bit more and Joe cracked and died.