Fiction Friday - The Crazy Frog

Jasper had hopped his way up the palm tree to get away from the free-range chickens pecking in the dust. With a two-inch-long body, he wasn't worried about the smaller hens, but one rooster had been giving him a heck of a time.

He rested, panting, on a palm frond, while the oblivious rooster scratched around below. This rest couldn't last for long: the wind was picking up.

The tree wasn't very tall, and as his branch swayed, he noticed a narrow break in the stone wall of the nearby building. A window to shelter! He jumped through it and landed on a broad stone windowsill looking down into a dark room. 

It was quiet. 
It was out of the wind. 
It was away from the rooster. 

He jumped down to the floor. Time to rest.

Sudden bright light woke him. A giant had ignited a trio of suns in this room! Jasper was still as a stone. The corner he had fallen asleep in was not sheltered from the view of the giant, who was now sitting on a shiny white chair near him. Soon she rose and the swooshing sounds of rushing water came from the chair.

The giant took two steps toward him and bent close. Her mouth opened and closed a few times, but she walked away and turned off the suns. Safe, but only for now. Jasper looked around for a better place to hide.

Light was all around him when the giant returned. She ignored him, but Jasper watched in terror as two furry predators - worse than the rooster! - raced past him. The giant followed the beasts.

Wait...Past him?

Maybe nobody saw him hiding in his new spot by the sink. He relaxed again and pretended to be a rock. In the toilet room beyond the sinks, a Tokay gecko sang out, challenging the acoustics. Jasper heard a commotion as the Tokay stopped, then started again. 

Before he could get used to the gecko's song, the giant was standing over him, swooping a long arm at him. In a panic, Jasper jumped. The arm followed. He jumped again, but that was a mistake because one of the hairy demons swatted at him with sharp claws. 

No! He was down, and she was on top of him, gripping him in fang-filled jaws. He waited for the worst.

...but the jaws did not clamp down. She trotted through a door into another room. Aha! He could see plenty of dark corners to hide in, furniture to nestle beneath, if only he could get free. 

The bite-y animal scurried under a big bed, followed by the other beast and the giant, who couldn't get under it, but bent down to watch the spectacle. Then, Jasper was released. He didn't move. If I play dead, maybe she'll abandon me! But she was too smart. The fuzzy paw - claws hidden this time - tapped him a couple times. He couldn't take it and made a tiny hop. 

Then came the fangs again. Fangs, then claws or paws. Fangs, then paws or claws. Would it never end? 

Fangs. Paws. Giant!

Again and again, Jasper was caught, dropped, chased, and caught again. Finally, the giant scooped him up in a small white cloth.

In a panic, he leapt down to the floor again. His original tormenter immediately grabbed him by one leg. When she dropped him, back came the giant. Jasper was too tired to fight.

But what's this? The giant put him outside! Out of the house of doom and into the night. It wasn't the way he came in, but at least there were no roosters around. He caught his breath and assessed the damage: a few puncture wounds and one limp leg, but he was alive. 

Free at last!

Until... 

The tormenting devil came running out the door and dragged him back inside! Why the torture? Why not kill him and be done with it?

But it didn't take long for the redeeming giant to get him again. This time, she took him farther away, outside the gate beyond the house. He lay there in the dark, wondering if he'd ever recover. After a short rest, he began the long journey down the hill.

Limp. Hop. Limp. Hop.  

My crayon visualization of the event.

 

This story was inspired by an actual event that took place in my house this week! A few years ago, I started writing short children's stories based on animal adventures that I've witnessed here in Vietnam, as an exercise for my Vietnamese lessons. Usually I choose very basic vocabulary and then get my teacher to help me find any words I don't know. After that, I've translated the stories into Chinese with my Chinese teacher! None published, of course. This will be the third, but by the time I get it into Vietnamese or Chinese it will have to be much shorter and simpler. 

Wednesday Poetry Corner: Lazy Days

Lazy, drippy day 
Staying inside safe and dry.
Nothing to see here.

(haiku written by me on September 12, 2026) 

 

Clearly, the day I wrote this I genuinely was too lazy to do much else. Although I was also beginning to show symptoms of a coming cold. When that happens, I try to take as much off my plate as possible and focus on resting, to give my body a chance to fend off the cold before it blows up into a big one.

So, not much happening right now. Talk to me next week, though! 

Monday Coffee Klatch: Denied!

I can't believe my favorite coffee shop is closed for two weeks! 😭

It says 8 days, but the math doesn't add up.

Because even though this sign says they will reopen on 16/08, in Vietnam many small businesses use the lunar calendar. Lunar 16/08 is September 26 according to the Gregorian calendar used internationally. 

Lunar 16/08 also happens to be the day after Mid-Autumn Festival. Since this is a family-run establishment, I assume that if the family is taking a vacation at the tail end of summer, the whole coffee shop naturally has to close down with them.

Mid-Autumn Festival is tied to the full moon around this time of year. It's very big in China as well as here in Vietnam. In China, it's one of the big holidays, right up there with the lunar New Year. 

I digress. Denied my favorite coffee shop makes me a bit grumpy about the holiday. Apparently. It makes it very easy to just stay in bed late of a morning. I'm so sad and dependent! 

Lack of the delights of my preferred morning beverage made me think of books that denied me my typical joy in reading them. I have only in recent years embraced the idea of simply setting aside books after starting them. Caution: One vague spoiler ahead.

One stand-out "Did Not Finish" book was from my former book club: Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski. I read very little before I decided I didn't want to pollute my brain with this garbage. If I didn't already have issues with the person who had recommended it, his recommendation would have solidified my estimation of his character. 😩

Two books that I actually finished that DENIED me the pleasure of reading are in fact widely recommended on "Must Read" book lists. So. Many. Book lists. And I have read both of these and just... ugh. 

1. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini - How did I feel denied by this one? SPOILER! (avert your eyes)

Nothing good happens in it! There. Now you know. Don't waste your time unless you want to absolutely despair of positive things happening. There are, apparently, people for whom NOTHING good happens. It could be you! Do you want to feel terrible? Read it. Not me. I'm still pissed about the hours wasted reading it. I can't say it was poorly written. If it's on all those lists, it must have literary merit, but for me? Barf.

2. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez - This was a different denial. Too confusing. This was so absolutely bizarre - and I like bizarre! - that I have no idea what happened or who was related to whom or what the actual story there was. Why is this highly recommended? Maybe if I read it again in 30 years I'll have a different viewpoint. I don't know.

Have you read either of these? What did you think? What is a book that you would not recommend to another reader? 

Fiction Friday - The Gnarly Old Tree, Part 2

(For the first part of this story, please visit this post.)

As the three men headed into the grassland to find the phone, Dad announced that the dot on his Find-It app had jumped again. "An animal probably got hold of it," said Ranger Stevens. It didn't look like the movement of some animal running across the prairie to Dad, but he held his tongue.

When they started rifling through the grass at the new location, it jumped again. The rangers looked at Dad's phone screen. It had moved a significant distance in an instant. "Could be signal bouncing," Stevens said this time. "We're in a part of the park people aren't supposed to be in. No towers out here." 

Dad just started walking in the direction of the dot. The rangers followed, and soon Stevens was looking at Dad's screen every other second. Miles kept his eyes on the horizon. "Whoa..." he said, just as Dad's frustrated voice said, "There it goes again!"

Miles wasn't listening. "Did you see that?" Stevens looked where Miles was pointing. "What?"

"Something... shimmered. The whole landscape changed. You really didn't see it?"

"A shimmer?" Stevens shrugged. "Mirage."

"It's not hot enough for a mirage."

"And yet you saw one."

The next time Dad noticed the dot move, Miles and Stevens both saw a shimmer in the air at the location. Miles spoke up. "We need to go back."

"Back!? Why?" Dad had spent so much time on this hunt already, he wasn't about to throw in the towel. 

"Back to wherever your kid lost the phone. It's not moving across the grassland. Nothing is moving out here. Let's start at the source."

Stevens gave in. "He last saw his phone at the tree, didn't you say?"

Dad nodded. "He was taking a photo of the tree, but he never left the trail." His staunch belief in his son's honesty brought a wry smile to Stevens. He clapped Dad on the shoulder. 

"True. Let's go to the trail. Do you know the exact spot?" 

Dad knew precisely where to go because he had made Liam search the trail before resorting to the Find-It app. 

They went there and looked across the empty grass toward the tree. In the dim, pink light of sunset, Dad had to agree that the gnarly old tree made a spectacularly creepy shadow against the sky. He would have taken a picture for Liam if he could do it without backing out of the app.

Stevens led them away from the trail to get to the tree. This time they all saw the air around the tree flicker. When it happened, they stopped walking. 

They exchanged looks. 

Stevens' brow was furrowed. 

Dad's wide eyes stared into Miles' calm ones. "It...it... changed," he said. They had all seen the branches showing buds instead of dead bark before the air stilled and the tree was old, dead, and gnarly again.

Only Miles looked curious instead of worried. He moved forward one cautious step at a time. As he moved, he felt the speaker of his park-issued law enforcement radio wiggling loose from its clip on his shoulder. He took it in his hand and kept moving. "The radio is drawn to the tree!" he called back to the other two.

They followed, a few paces behind him.

As he drew nearer to the tree, his radio crackled, and Dad could hear it through Stevens' radio beside him. Another step, more static. Suddenly Dad gripped his phone tighter. "I feel the pull. Do you?"

Stevens frowned. "Yeah."

Miles was only three meters from the tree now. He was leaning back to offset the pull they could all now feel to some degree. "Stop there," Stevens called to him. He and Dad were several paces behind him. 

"Do you see this?" Miles asked. He didn't dare look away, so his voice came as a shout. The air was shimmering as before, and now they could see colors flickering on and around the tree itself. 

"The shimmer? Yeah," Stevens begrudgingly acknowledged. "You're right. That's no mirage."

"No - the lights... inside..." Miles' voice sounded further away now.

"Inside where? The tree?" Dad started to panic. "What are you looking at?"

"Wait, I -"

"Ranger Miles, stay where you are!" Stevens suddenly barked. He had seen Miles reaching forward, and guessed at the danger.

Miles straightened his back, but kept his arm out. "Hang on, I think it's - right - Ah!" His arm pulled back as if he'd been bitten, but something dropped on the grass below the tree. Liam's phone. 

Dad handed his own phone to Ranger Stevens and was moving toward Miles before Stevens could do anything. Where Miles stood, he dropped to his knees and crawled over to grab the phone.

Miles still seemed in a trance staring at the tree. Dad looped an arm through his elbow and forced him to move. After a couple paces, Stevens took over guiding him. The closer they got to the trail, the more Miles was able to shake off whatever had happened back there at the gnarly old tree. 

Hiking down the trail to the Visitors' Center, Dad looked over the phone. It was fine. The last photo taken had been the gnarly old tree, and Dad thought he could just make out a shimmery effect around it.

Liam hugged his dad as soon as he saw the phone in his hand. "I knew you would find it! Where was it?"

Dad kissed the top of his son's head. "That, son, is a very good question."

 *CODA*

The next day, the tree was cordoned off for a fifteen meter radius.

A month later, a glass wall had been erected around it so visitors could look but not touch. 

Wednesday Poetry Corner: Lyrics

All song lyrics are poems, aren't they? I recently heard Crazy by Gnarls Barkley while I was out at a restaurant. Do you remember that song from 2006? 

For some reason, in that moment/location/situation, it sounded so poetic I felt the need to share. But the way lyrics read, they include all the repeated words, the "mm's" and "yeah's", so here is my take on the poetry of the lyrics.

Lyrics found online courtesy of musixmatch.com, but I am removing the repetition, mm's, and yeah's, for more poetic reading. 

Crazy
by CeeLo Green, Danger Mouse, and Gnarls Barkley

I remember when I lost my mind
There was something so pleasant about that place
Even your emotions have an echo in so much space

And when you're out there without care
Yeah, I was out of touch
But it wasn't because I didn't know enough
I just knew too much

Does that make me crazy?

Possibly

 

And I hope that you are having the time of your life
But think twice, that's my only advice
Come on now, 
Who do you think you are?
Ha-ha-ha, bless your soul
You really think you're in control, well

I think you're crazy

Just like me

 

My heroes had the heart to lose their lives out on the limb
And all I remember is thinking "I want to be like them"

Ever since I was little, it looked like fun
And it's no coincidence I've come
And I can die when I'm done.

 

But maybe I'm crazy

 
Maybe you're crazy

 
Maybe we're crazy

 
Probably

  

Monday Coffee Klatch: Comfort Books

Some people have comfort foods. I have comfort books. 

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy would be my primary comfort book, if I had to pick just one. Brett is traveling in the US right now, and told me he found my "Hitchhikers book" in the storage tub at his brother's house, and will bring it back home to me. 

Bearing in mind that I have here in the house my leather-bound Hitchhiker's "trilogy", plus a paperback of the 5th book, plus a copy of the original radio scripts, I had to ask which book had been left in the States. 

Turns out, it was a big coffee table book I'd purchased - thin, but huge - with color photos (not from the show or movie) and a fun iridescent dust cover.

 

I had to tell him not to bring it back. Sell it, donate it, find it a good home, but I don't need it with me here in Vietnam.

My love for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy made me buy this beautiful book, but we no longer live the "Coffee Table Book lifestyle™!" 😆

I have the text of the book here in the first version I'd ever owned, complete with inscription from my parents (who gave it to me), paint stains, and my own penciled notes in margins. 

So that's my go-to comfort book.

And here's where we get back to the coffee part of Coffee Klatch.

In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Arthur Dent's comfort beverage of choice is tea. He goes on about it almost as much as I launch poetic about coffee. 😆

Maybe tea is just too British for me first thing in the morning. Either way, it seems that even a stranded Earthling trying to make sense of the universe appreciates a reliable brown beverage.

So the questions of the day are:

What's your go-to comfort book? (If you have one.)

And what's your go-to comfort beverage?

Fiction Friday - The Gnarly Old Tree

Everyone was in the car ready to go home when Liam exclaimed, "My phone! I can't find it!" His parents exchanged a look before turning around to face the kids in the back seat. "Where did you see it last?"

His face twisted in a blend of worry and confusion. "I don't know. I'm sorry." At eleven, Liam and his twin sister were on a trial run with these cell phones, mostly so the kids wouldn't get lost during this family trip. 

His sister Lianna never looked up from the puzzle game on hers. "You took that picture on the way down. Some tree."

Liam had been using his phone to try his hand at photography. "Oh yeah! That gnarly old dead-looking thing! It made me think of Halloween." Even in the relief of remembering, the strain showed in his face. "It's near the top of the hill."

His dad nodded in resignation. "Well, that's a place to start looking. We'd better go before it gets dark."

"All of us?" Lianna whined.

"No." He got out of the car, then leaned in and addressed Liam. "Come on, Sport; let's get stepping." Then to his wife, "You guys might want to wait in the visitors' center."

Up by the "gnarly old dead-looking" tree, the phone was nowhere to be found. "It's gotta be somewhere, son. You used it here. Let's go back down more slowly, and search the area around the path as we go." As they went, Liam kept stopping to check places he might have paused to take pictures.

Nothing.

He was on the verge of tears when they reached the parking lot. He read blame in his father's eyes. 

"You're sure you put the phone away after that photo?" The question was unnecessary. The whole family had seen Liam zip his phone away after every holiday snapshot or video. Lianna had taken to calling him an old man every time he did it.

Hope bloomed in Liam's eyes as his head bobbed rapidly. "Of course. Always." He watched his dad do something on his own cell phone. Liam didn't interrupt. Dad was on it. Dad could fix anything. He was like magic that way.  

Then his dad frowned at his phone. Glancing at Liam he said, "Let's go find your mom and sister." 

Inside the Visitors' Center, Dad ordered both kids ice-cream sundaes and had a whispered conversation with Mom.

"How did it get there?"

"We'd better ask if we can..." Liam was too focused on his ice-cream to notice his dad cringe at his mom's suggestion. Dad walked away. Soon he was back with a park ranger in an impressive green uniform.

The ranger watched Liam's face as his dad questioned him. Dad showed the screen of his phone to Liam. "It's okay, you're not in trouble, but how did your phone get here?" The cell-phone screen showed a map of the area. In a wide green section far from the path they had just walked, a little red dot was blinking on and off. "I don't know," Liam said. 

"Did you leave the path, son?"

"No! I don't even know where that is!"

Lianna had squeezed in to see. She jumped to his defense. "We were talking most of the way down. Even if he stepped off the path, he couldn't have got that far without me noticing." For once, Liam was grateful for her incessant teasing.

"You weren't playing a game? Throwing things? Maybe it was an accident?"

"I wouldn't accidentally throw my phone!" His dad angled his eyes to Lianna.

"Nuh-uh! I'm not that stupid!" she protested. Suddenly defiant, she asked, "Wait a minute, why did you guys waste all that time re-hiking the trail if you knew where it was?"

"I didn't turn on the Find-It app until Liam had searched for himself. You kids need to take responsibility if you're going to get cell phones permanently." Before either of them could respond, he switched gears. "Now, Ranger Stevens is going to go with us to look for it in this area. That grassland is protected." 

Lianna's eyes had stayed on the phone while her dad spoke. "Wait. It moved. It just jumped!"

They all looked. The blinking dot had shifted several hundred yards north. 

Dad stared at the screen. "That far? That's not possible." 

Ranger Stevens turned to Lianna. "What do you mean, jumped?"

She pointed at the phone impatiently. "It was there, and then it was there." 

Liam was frantic. "I haven't been out there!"

"We know," his sister said.

The dot moved again.

"Well..." Stevens adjusted his utility belt. "Let's go check it out." Liam went to follow his dad and the ranger, but the ranger turned to him. "Sorry kid, not you. Just your dad."

Liam watched as another ranger joined them outside the big glass doors. As he sat back down with his mother and sister, he saw the dot on his mom's Find-It app move once more.

To Be Continued...

This story was inspired by a young boy in my English Club who lost his phone and found it in a strange place.