Fish and Frog.

by *somnomollior

A Frogologue.

Frog is sitting on a log that is lying across a small pond.  
Fish is swimming around in that pond.
Frog:  We are all objects moving through space and time.
Fish: You are not moving;  you are sitting.  Neither am I moving through space;  I am moving through water.
Frog:  Mere quibbles, Quibbler.  The water and the log are both moving through space as the world turns, and because you are in the water and I am on the log, we are moving too.
Fish:  I object.
Frog:  Why?
Fish:  You said I was an object so I am objecting.
Frog:  Ha, ha, very funny, Tiddler.
Fish:  My name is Fish.
Frog:  To me you are a tiddler.  I am old and wise beyond your imagining.
Fish:  You have no idea of what I can imagine.  Besides, there's a lot I don't even need to imagine, such as pompous frogs on logs.
Frog:  I rise above you, in many ways.  I contemplate therefore I must be.
Fish:  Be what?
Frog:  Simply be.
Fish:  You're a bee now, are you?  Where's the honey?
Frog:  Hush!  Cease your bubbly babble.  Listen, you may learn something.
Fish:  What can a frog teach a fish?
Frog:  Deep and profound things.
Fish:  I know deep and profound already.  I've been there.  It's at the bottom of the pond.
Frog:  I am talking about the hidden depths inside oneself.
Fish:  I have no desire to see your insides.
Frog:  Do you think at all?  Before you speak, for example?  No, I believe not.  Everything simply bubbles out of you.
Fish:  Bubble, bubble.
Frog:  QED.
Fish: What does that mean?
Frog:  That I know more than you.  I know a peace and calm as I sit here on my log that you will never know as you swim frenetically hither and thither in the cold water.
Fish:  I'm not always hithering and thithering.  I sometimes lie still in the shadows, and pictures pass through my mind:  swirls of blue, green and yellow light, waves of warmth, vibrating feathers and fronds, a parade of movement and colour.
Frog:  But do you understand what it means?
Fish:  It means that I'm a part of nature, of its form and its flow.
Frog:  There you are!  See.  I told you:  we are all objects moving through space and time.
Fish:  I object.
Frog:  O, no.  Here we go again.
Fish:  I object to being called an object.  I am Fish.  I told you.
Frog:  Then I suppose I am Frog and all frogs the frog.  Are all fish one fish?
Fish:  No, don't be silly.  Each fish is its own fish.
Frog:  And what distinguishes you from the others?
Fish:  I'm me, and they are they.
Frog:  How profound.
Fish:  I'm profound!  You told me you'd teach me profound things, but I am a profound thing!
Frog:  Profoundly irritating.
Fish:  I'm going to jump out of the water now.
Fish jumps out of the water, does a little wiggle in the air and then lands back in the water with a plop.
Frog:  Bravo.
Fish:  I bet you can't do that.
Frog:  I don't gamble, but I can leap great distances if I have a mind to, and I can swim.
Fish:  Show me!
Frog leaps off the log and into the water, also with a plop. He swims around the fish a few times and then hops back on the log.
Fish:  You're not so bad after all.
Frog:  Why?  Merely because I can swim, like you?  Is that your definition of what is good:  anything that can do what you do?
Fish:  Swimming is good.  It just is.
Frog:  I must admit though that I did enjoy that.  O, how fleeting are the moments of joy.
Fish:  It's not fleeting for me.  I swim all the time.
Frog:  Then it must seem all the same to you.  Where's the joy in that?
Fish:  There's joy in leaping.
Frog:  So for you the joy is in leaping into the air, and for me it is in diving into the water.  We are the same and we are different, Fish.
Fish:  How can that be?
Frog:  I do not know.  Some things are beyond even my great mind, but I will sit now and meditate upon the matter.  Next time you come by I may have an answer.
Fish:  Time.  Moving through time.  I feel a song coming on:
It's so sublime
To move through time;
To make a wish
If you're a fish;
To think on log
If you're a frog.
Next time we meet
It will be sweet:
You'll tell me why
We swim, birds fly;
We'll talk and sigh
Then say goodbye.

Frog has closed his eyes and is silent.  
Fish swims away.