The Frogs Who Wanted a King

In a sun-dappled marsh where croaks once drifted like lazy polyphonic madrigals, a parliament of frogs grows weary of its own reflection. Tedium, that most democratic tyrant, gnaws at their collective spirit until they petition the heavens for a sovereign to stir the stagnant reeds of destiny. From a cumulonimbus pulpit the Divine Artificer, visibly vexed by such civic flippancy, hurls down a splintered log—an unresponsive regent of lignified silence. The amphibians, crestfallen by this wooden idol, escalate their clamor, beseeching again for a ruler with sinew and volition. Heaven’s patience thins; a stork—ivory-feathered, saurian-eyed—descends, embodying both throne and executioner. In the blood-churned aftermath of this ornithocratic purge, the survivors, chastened and wiser, rescind their plea, left to contemplate the terrifying elasticity of their own desire.