HUNGER || #Wattys2018

Chapter 4 'Unravelling'

The cold scaly frogs lay dead on the tables, waiting to be sliced open. I often wondered where they got these red eyed poisonous reptiles from. And if they were even reptiles.

Often, the image of our cranky old teacher, Mrs Larson, scavenging through the South American rain forest to collect red eyed scaly frogs would pop into my head and I laughed.

Was there an endless collection of cold dead animals stored in the Nevada desert somewhere? We had learnt about the Nevada desert in 5th grade and the hidden, super secret base they called area fifty one that resided there.

Mrs Larson was informing us about the delicate incisions we had to make with our scalpels when we cut into the frogs, but the demonstration proved to be quite unhelpful since her hands were shaking half of the time due to her crippling arthritis.

After having to repeat herself three times, she finally let us get on with it and waddled behind her desk where she could comfortably sneer at us for whispering too loudly with her little wormy mouth.

My partner, Lana, who was always skittish, took one look at the cold dead frog and skittishly fainted on the spot.

She had to be carried out of the room by the doting school nurse whose hair was perpetually pulled back in a low, inoffensive bun, matched only by her constant need to submissively keep her head down at all times.

How sweet and kind Lana was for not wanting to hurt an innocent God given creature. The girls cooed, hands pressed against their chests.

How anything with skin as ugly and eyes as bulging and red could be a creature of God, I did not know, but they said it was so and so it was.

Oh, but we all knew Lana was a wuss! I mean really, not wanting to hurt a dead frog? I poked and prodded at the dead animal before digging the knife deep into its soft underbelly, causing a black tar like slimy puss to pour out and dribble down its scaly frog skin.

This intrigued me. How once it was alive and the black puss flowed through its veins like how blood flows through our veins but now it was dead like how we would all be dead someday.

I pressed my blade down on its slimy translucent skin and made an insision down its body like how I'd seen Mother cut fresh beef. To make steak.

I remembered how I would watch the blood ooze out onto the chopping board, transfixed with the languid movements of her hands and how the flab of meat moulded perfectly against her palms.

I watched the frog's head roll off its body, leaving a trail of blood on the table before it flopped onto the floor. With a clatter, I let the scalpel fall from my hand, looking up to find a dozen faces staring back at me.

She's crazy.

What has gotten into her? I heard them say as I inspected the slimy black frog goo on my hands, sticking in between my fingers like mouldy cheese.

Mrs Larson was calling out to me in her shrill tea kettle voice as I barged through the classroom door and down the empty hallways.

"Come back here right now, young lady!" She screamed, pointing her wrinkled old lady finger at me.

But her voice seemed so far away. The world was becoming a red blur, punctuated by the bright overhead lights lining the hallway ceilings. They were beaming in my eyes like UFOs from space.

I could feel my mouth salivating, longing the for the coppery taste of fresh blood and tender raw meat.

Stumbling into the bathroom, I walked over to the sink and unzipped my schoolbag, fishing out the walkie talkie to contact the girls.