Coeur de grenouille

A porcelain prison, a lily-pad mirage: Reinette the frog spends her days in a glass bowl whose curve warps the world into a giddy fisheye. Outside, Arthur the rat—a whiskered knight with a tail like frayed calligraphy—scrabbles at the base, convinced that one heroic shove will roll the globe and crack destiny open. Above, Gaston the squirrel pirouettes along oak limbs, his tail a plume of rust-red heraldry; he trusts not brawn but burglary, conspiring with a magpie whose wings are ink-blots against the sky. Their rivalry ignites like struck flint: chattering acorns hurled against squeaking claws, bark dust swirling in sun-shafts, the air metallic with impending blood. When the skirmish ends, both suitors lie entwined in a tableau of fur and sinew, hearts stilled mid-beat. A lone goose waddles from the reeds, beak snapping like castanets, and swallows the bowl—Reinette still inside—whole. The final image is a translucent bulge sliding down an ivory throat, a living jewel forever circling inside the dark.