The Froglet - English Stories -
02-27-2007, 08:05 AM
A froglet living in a pond, which was in a heavily forested area, was complaining about not having any friends. This froglet spent most of his time swimming in the pond, sometimes he got out of the water and strolled on the grass by jumping. Every day was completely the same as the former day. Every day the same thing, the same things. The endless monotony made him tired. One day the froglet got angry with himself.
“As if you were curious to spend all your life in this pond! Is the world as small as you thought? Is the world as tiny as it seems? Why don’t you save yourself, leave and go from here? If you say the world is this pond where you live, know that you are not a frog of this world; you are a frog of completely different worlds. Never forget this: You will reach the life you desire only when you go away from this pond.”
The froglet made up his mind at that moment. He would leave here and set out, would look for friends for himself in the places he would go. The froglet moved forward in the forest for days. Finally the dense trees of the forest became sparse, and he reached a little flat place. He immediately saw a bright thing on the ground. What on earth was that? He was surprised when he looked at the bright thing. There was a frog in that and that frog was looking at him, too. He returned and hid behind a stone. After he got over his first bewilderment, he realized that this bright thing was so slim that there couldn’t be any frog or anything like that in it. Then the situation was clearly obvious: The bright thing must have been a mirror and he had seen himself in it. He took the mirror and leant it on the edge of a tree nearby. He started to do all sorts of amusing things standing in front of the mirror. Sometimes he stood on his two feet, sometimes he jumped, and sometimes he took a deep breath and watched his image in the mirror while blowing out his chest and cheeks. What he liked best of all these motions was seeing himself looking huge in the mirror. He started to take deeper breaths and to seem huger. Finally, such a time came that the froglet become as round as a ball and he realized that he was off the ground and rising.
The froglet acted as if nothing had happened. He breathed out a little when he had risen nearly ten metres of the ground. It was unnecessary to rise any more. He was not a bird to flap his wings, to rise into the sky, to fly as high as he possibly could. He was just a little froglet. It was said that it was not possible that frogs could fly; it was like a dream but real. He was already flying. He looked around haphazardly. He looked in all directions. He had come from the forest, so he would go back that way. He stretched his front right left in the direction he wanted to go in an automatic motion. Amazing!... He had suddenly turned to face the way he wanted to go. Although he had turned, he was still floating motionless. He suddenly remembered that he used his back legs to move forward in water. He pulled his back legs slowly to his chest, pushed them backwards, pulled, and pushed. What he had thought was completely right. He was able to move forward. He would be able to move forward as much as he wanted to, would be able to go down wherever he wanted.
After flying a while the froglet noticed an old frog lying at full length near a river. He thought “the old frog must have an illness”.
“Because no frog lies in the open like this. If he lies, it means that he is inviting danger. Let’s go down and have a look what his problem is.”
This meadowland where the old frog had fallen and stayed was a picnic area. People used to spend their weekends here on sunny summer days and have picnics. Someone who wasn’t in his right mind had drunk what was in a bottle he had brought with him, and had thrown and broken the bottle while going. So the old frog had injured his foot when he stepped on a piece of the broken bottle and had fainted because he couldn’t endure the pain any more. When the old frog regained consciousness, he told the things that had happened and wanted the froglet to help him.
After the froglet said:
“Sir, I have never faced a situation like this before. That piece of glass must be taken out of your foot. I can’t do this, but while I was coming I saw two children fishing further down the river. I will go and call them, they may help you”, and he went away jumping.
When the froglet came near the children, he said:
“Could you help, please? An old frog has been injured and is lying over there. Please come with me and help him, save him. It is a good thing to do kind deeds. Come on children, stand up please, and come with me”
The children succumbed to the froglet’s entreaties, took their fishing lines out of water, put them aside and followed the froglet. After a short while the piece of glass had been taken out of the old frog’s foot and the injured part had been covered with a clean cloth.
After the children went, the froglet acted as a crutch for the old frog and brought him to a quiet and secluded place. After the old frog had thanked the froglet for the things he did, he said:
“I wonder if they would listen to me if I called out to all living things to be good, as good deeds are very few and far between. For some reason or other everybody continues a never ending race by saying let’s do him/her harm, hit him/her first before another one does me harm. Let’s give up this meaningless evil race, let’s become like brothers, cooperate and run towards happiness. I am fed up with seeing evil, getting sad and crying all the time” and when he finished his words he started crying. The old frog’s crying caused the froglet to shake.
“Stop crying now old frog, wipe off your tears. We will behave like we are brothers from now on. So evil things are and everyone tries hard to become the first in this race. Therefore I’ve started a race of goodness against that from now on. I will travel all over the world soon and I will tell all the livings things about goodness and also make them participate in this race. The flag of goodness will wave on the flagpole forever.”
The froglet trusted himself a lot. If you asked why - because he had a big advantage. How quickly you have forgotten, he was able to fly you know! Travelling intercontinental was a piece of cake for him.
Written by: Serdar Yıldırım
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