One night, a frog came to the edge of a pond and began to sing. It so happened that as the first notes floated across the water, the moon appeared on the horizon, a thin crescent moon, like a smile. The more the frog sang, the higher the moon rose. He did not feel this was coincidence.

Night after night, the frog returned to sing to the moon and night after night the moon grew fuller and brighter, glowing with pleasure, until the circle was complete and a tender, luminous face gazed down upon him.

But then, in the nights that followed, the moon began to shrink. No matter how much the frog sang, or how well, the moon’s light slowly emptied out, until it was no more than a casual stroke of a brush, a frown. And then it disappeared altogether.

Under the black sky, the frog began to croak.

© Richard Parkin 2026

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