It was a ritual and a sin in the eyes of conventional people. Nevertheless, Sundays were designated for frogs, when the father and his two sons would stroll in darkness down the avenue towards the park. The younger was 6 years old, the eldest 11, and the father unwavering in his step. They walked because they knew that they could, and should, be up before the sunrise.
Whenever a frog croaked in the park at the hour of 5 a.m., there was sure to be a pair of binoculars on it and shallow breathing from the younger boy. The eldest had a net and a notepad, and the father had green eyes the color of building scaffolds. A croak and a swish of a net and flashlights on the lily pads. The younger was best at shining a light in the frog’s eyes; light had a way of freezing frogs, just as they were, something like how a deer uses freeways and speeding cars.
Sometimes, they stopped to watch the sun’s beams, rising slow and steady from behind the hills. The youngest might yawn, looking at his father first before he did. Just once, mid-yawn, he swallowed it. The father’s eyes were not like building scaffolds—in a split moment, they were murderously green.
Dogs.
Snarling, scratching, retching, wild dogs came around the bend. The eldest boy was still staring at the hills. Ripples on the pond and bumps on the skin, knocking knees and palms slick with sweat, the younger felt even younger. Closer and closer the pack advanced, and the father grabbed hold of his boys’ shirt collars.
Upward, away and swung on a branch, the boys gripped and watched on. Their father turned to crouch on his fingers, daring the dogs forward. He was a tall man, at least 6 feet, crouched to the ground sans cape. The boys held their breath and hoped for the best, watching the alpha snap at the air with his fangs.
Charge.
The alpha was a whirl of patched greys and matted black, stinking of subway rats and pinecones. The yellow irises of his eyes saw only the murderous green ones in the tall man, looking more and more by the minute as if there were no irises at all, only black pupils. The boys watched their father’s fingers curl, picking up dirt, bugs and sweat. The alpha heard the crunch of exoskeletons from the palm of the man’s hand, or maybe it was only dead leaves. With an almost audible gulp, the hound skidded to a halt, unsure. With whelps and yelps the others stopped too, waiting for it to charge, or turn away, or howl. The dog took an exploratory, slight step forward.
A guttural engine sound came from the man’s throat. He lunged at the dog, fingernails bared like a saber toothed tiger drawn on cave walls. The curling grey tail on the alpha went rigidly straight—it howled, a sound of terror. It would have meant death to stay where it was; its ragged, still-beating heart told it so. It was afraid of this fangless, clawless man, with two boys in a tree. The pack began to run backwards, following the leader in its flight. But the man wanted death, death for the things that threatened the boys in the tree, death for the thing that made his heart secretly shiver.
The dogs could feel his anger and his fear, combined as a cocktail of lethal intent. The boys saw clouds of autumn dust rise from the lane, watched their father’s hands reaching, stretching, aching to get a hold of a paw. They ran as hunted prey ought to run; the man’s fingers were left clutching a scared and frenzied air, heavy with dog sweat.
He stood to inhale and drank the morning. Timidly, slowly, carefully, the boys climbed down from the tree. Their father bent and smoothed their wrinkled shirt collars.
Sally Choueka is a master’s student in Humanities at Penn State Harrisburg.
