THE FROG COMRADE

by Benjamin Rosenbaum

Ben Rosenbaum collaborated recently with Ethan Ham and others on Tumbarumba, a conceptual artwork in the form of a Firefox browser extension. You can find it online at www.turbulence.org/Works/tumbarumba/.
“The Frog Comrade,” as you might guess from the title, puts a new spin on a classic fairy tale.

Once there was a princess who lived in a small apartment and could never leave. She lived with her mother and her older sister, and a guard to keep them there. Her father, the former king, had been taken away to a camp in the highlands, to work very hard and learn about the new system. Her mother cried almost every day.

Her older sister had ringlets of black hair and flashing eyes, and knew what was best for everyone. She convinced the guard to bring her things that were hard to find, like oranges and chocolate. She would share a little with her sister and keep the rest for herself.

The younger princess had plain brown hair and ordinary eyes and did not even know what was best for herself. She sat with her mother, reading fairy tales and trying to make her smile.

One fine day when the younger princess was twelve years old, her father returned from the highlands, thin, and hobbling, and very happy to be home. The former queen leapt from the sofa, crying tears of joy. The old king and the old queen embraced, and from then on those two, at least, lived happily until they died.

When they were eating dinner and the guard had gone out of the room to smoke, the princesses’ father said, “My girls, I have brought you two gifts from an old witch in the highlands, who for some reason liked it better when I was king. One is a hat which makes whoever wears it invisible. The other is a frog that talks. Who is to have which gift?”

The older daughter said, “Is this the kind of frog that, when you kiss it, it turns into a handsome prince?”

“I believe it is that kind,” said the former king, “though I have never tried it out. However, you should recall that being a prince is no great thing nowadays, and perhaps dangerous.”

“I am no prince!” said an angry voice from the old king’s pocket.

“I will take the hat,” said the older daughter.

The old king looked to the younger daughter, who could not decide what she wanted, but to make them all happy, she said, “I would love a frog. Thank you, Father.”

The father gave the hat to the older sister and the frog to the younger. The frog was cool to the touch, and a fine bright shade of green. It stared solemnly at the younger sister, and she felt a flutter in her heart.

They heard the guard’s boots on the stairs.

The older sister cried, “Goodbye, dear Mother and Father! Goodbye, dear Sister! I am off to make my way in the world!” and before the eyes of the astonished guard, she put on the hat and disappeared. She rushed through the open door, down the stairs, and into the street.

The younger princess hid her frog.

Later, when the younger princess was sitting by the window, missing her sister, wishing she could go outside and play, she took the frog out of her pocket. “Do you want me to kiss you?” she whispered.

“Certainly not,” said the frog. “Kissing is romance, and romance is just the kind of silliness the new system has gotten rid of. Romance makes people think princes and princesses are better than everyone else, and distracts us from working to make everyone healthier and happier. I am against kissing.”

Instead, every day, when the guard was outside smoking, the princess would take the frog from her pocket and talk to it. Often she read it fairy tales, which it said were full of foolishness and wrong ideas.

Letters arrived from the older sister, who had escaped to a country where everyone could say just what they wanted, although no one listened to anyone else, and where everyone was rich, except for those who were not. She had tried to become a supermodel, but she had found she could not hold still for very long. So she had become a gossip columnist, aided by her magic hat. Despite the black blotches of the censor’s pen, they could tell that she was living a reasonably happy life, full of excitement.

On the eve of the younger daughter’s sixteenth birthday, the guard came to tell them he was leaving. “There has been another revolution,” he said. “More walls and statues have been pulled down. Kings and queens and princesses are no longer dangerous. Now they are ordinary, and now it is the job of everyone to get rich. You do not need me to watch you anymore, so I am off to make my way in the world.” He left the apartment and went down the stairs, leaving all the doors open.

For the first time in many years, the young princess and her parents crept outside, quiet as thieves. They went straight to the park, where they caressed the leaves, the bark, the stones, and the benches like lovers, or like blind people memorizing shapes.

The princess brought her magic frog to her first day of school, eager to show the other students. They laughed at her, calling: “Princess, princess, kiss your magic frog!” When the frog chastised them, they angrily accused her of ventriloquism. The princess ran away, red with shame.

“They are fools,” said the frog as they sat on a bench in the park. “It is not your fault that you are a princess with a head full of romantic nonsense. Instead of working together humbly to educate you and setting you a good example of diligent labor for the common good, they used you for their own amusement! Cruelty and selfishness must not be tolerated in the new system.”

“Frog!” cried the princess. “What are you talking about? The new system is gone! It has failed! Didn’t you hear the teachers?”

“The new system is not gone from my heart,” said the frog. “And the new system did not fail. We failed the new system. We got rid of princes, but then some of our comrades set themselves up as princes instead. This misled the people.”

“Frog,” said the princess, “I never liked the new system. It locked my family up in an apartment! It sent my father to work until he was thin and hobbling!”

So they argued, and so the princess forgot for a while how the other students had laughed at her.

From then on, the princess avoided the other children. After school, she and the frog went to the movies. From the movies, it seemed that the job of everyone after the second revolution was not only to get rich, but also to kiss a great deal and even to take their clothes off all the time. The princess and her frog argued about this, as they argued about everything. The princess did not know what to think, but arguing with the frog made her feel closer to knowing what she thought.

Soon it was time for the princess to go to university. Her parents took her to the train. “So you are off to make your way in the world,” said her mother. The princess nodded nervously.

At university, she kept her frog always hidden in her handbag. No one laughed at her, and they invited her to parties. Soon she met a man who seemed like a prince, or perhaps a knight. He was very tall and strong and smiled in a way that made the princess warm. He told her to come back to his apartment, and she went with him.

Once she was in his apartment, he locked the door and began to kiss her. “Stop, stop,” said the princess, but the man only laughed.

At this, the frog hopped out of the princess’s handbag and cleared its throat. “I would listen to the witch, young man, if I were you,” it said. “You don’t want to end up like me.”

The young man was so frightened at this that he jumped out the window and ran away down the street. The princess and her frog went back to the park.

“You were right!” cried the princess. “Kissing is horrible. You are right to be against kissing.”

“No, no,” said the frog. “That man was a hooligan! Between two comrades who are considerate and honest with each other, kissing can be pleasant and healthy. Kissing is not wrong. It is only making kissing so important, more important than work or the needs of the people, which is wrong.”

“Oh,” said the princess. “Does this mean you do want me to kiss you, so you can stop being a frog?”

“No, no!” cried the frog. “You are a princess who has read too many fairy tales and I am a frog, so for the two of us to kiss would be precisely the kind of thing I am against...which leads to foolishness.” It looked away from her eyes, studying its webbed feet. “Anyway...it is not important whether I am a frog or not. Perhaps I can serve the needs of the people better as a frog.”

The princess was relieved, but somehow also disappointed. She imagined kissing the cool green mouth of the frog, a flash of light, its rubbery lips turning warm and human beneath hers. It did not seem pleasant and healthy. It seemed strange and eerie, and very exciting.

The princess stopped going to parties. She did well at her studies, but she had no friends. She had a small room in the university town, with a narrow bed, and she slept hugging bundles of letters from home.

A young man named Mark always argued with her in class. One day, after class, he followed her home, waving his hands with the intensity of argument, occasionally walking into bushes or mailboxes. “The new system was cold and sterile! It banned love!” he cried, and fell into a cellar stairwell.

Mark did not look like a knight or a prince. He looked more like a stable boy, with thick glasses. The princess invited him up to her apartment for tea.

As the princess poured the tea, Mark said, “And after all, it is obvious that the so-called ‘new system’ failed because it could not compete!”

The frog could stand to hear no more. It leapt out of the princess’s handbag and onto the table. “Not compete?” said the frog. “Not compete at what? It competed just fine at feeding the hungry, and healing the sick! It competed just fine at giving everyone a job and a purpose, and keeping the streets safe at night! What did it fail to compete at? Making fast cars and movies about kissing?”

“Who is this?” said Mark.

The princess turned pale. Would Mark laugh at her, and shout, Princess, princess, kiss your frog? Would he jump out the window? “It is my frog,” she whispered.

“Nice to meet you,” said Mark. “But surely you see—the new system told everyone it would make more and better things and make everyone feel richer. So when it failed to do so....”

Every day after class, Mark and the princess and her frog would argue and drink tea. Mark did not agree with the frog’s ideas, but he admired it, and he introduced the frog to some other friends who thought the way it did. Soon the frog began to speak at rallies of many people. Usually the princess would take it there, in her handbag, and place it on the lectern before the microphones.

“The new system had flaws,” the frog said. “It tried to be just and fair, and often it failed. Comrades who acted like princes twisted it around for their own power. But what have we replaced it with? We have given up on even trying to be fair. This latest way is worse even than the days of kings and princesses! A king at least had a heart, but a corporation cannot have a heart.”

Then many people would cheer. The frog decided to run for Parliament.

One day, when the frog was out at a rally without the princess, Mark turned red and began to cough and stammer. The princess thought he might have some disease, but then she listened more closely to what he was saying. It turned out he was asking her to marry him.

“We should probably try kissing first,” said the princess soberly. Mark, trembling, nodded. They tried it out, and the princess learned that the frog had been right: kissing between honest and considerate comrades was pleasant and healthy. She did not feel as if she were going to die, or as if it were spring instead of November, or as if she had been made for this moment. She did not turn red and shiver and sigh the way that Mark did. But she liked it.

“Please marry me,” Mark said. “If you do, I promise that we will live happily until we die.”

The princess did not know what she wanted. Mark was very kind and she loved to talk with him. And kissing was fun. She felt that something was missing, but she knew that was probably romance. And wasn’t the frog perhaps right, that romance was just to confuse people, and make them buy more clothes and perfume and movies, and think princes and princesses were more important than other people? And she liked the idea of Mark living happily until he died. So she said, “All right.”

When the frog returned home, the princess told it what had happened. The frog began to hop back and forth across the table. “I see,” the frog said. “I see.”

“Don’t you think it’s a good idea?” the princess said. “Don’t you think he’d be a very good husband?”

“Yes, yes,” the frog said. “Of course. Mark is a good person. He has many wrong ideas, but at least he listens. You will be a good match.” It stopped hopping and looked at the princess, first with one eye, then with the other. “Do you....”

“What?” asked the princess. “Do I what?”

“Never mind,” said the frog, hopping again. “I was going to ask an irrelevant question. Never mind.”

“Frog,” said the princess. “Are you ever sorry that you are a frog? I mean, do you want me to kiss you? I mean, now that I am engaged to marry Mark, don’t you think there isn’t so much danger anymore, of it leading to all those things you were worried about before?”

“No!” shouted the frog. “No, no, for the hundredth time! How many times do I have to tell you?”

The princess was shocked. She said nothing.

“Pardon me,” said the frog, turning a darker green. “I did not mean to be so...abrupt. Ah. Forgive me...if I do not want to talk about it further.”

“All right,” said the princess in a very small voice, and she went to bed. But she could not sleep, and lay the whole night wondering what the frog meant, and what the irrelevant question was that it had been going to ask her.

When she thought about the frog, she felt that her life was magical, and that she was meant for the frog, that she and it, princess and frog, were like a lock and a key, and that if she held the frog to her heart she would be more than happy—she would be right.

But of course, this was exactly the sort of foolishness against which the frog had warned her.

Once the frog had collected enough signatures to get onto the ballot for Parliament, it began to have enemies.

“The frog is against God,” said the preachers in the churches.

“The frog will bring back the work camps,” wrote the newspapers.

“The frog eats flies,” said a man on TV.

Posters with the frog’s picture on them were carried through the streets. Volunteers came to drive the frog to huge rallies.

The princess stayed home with Mark.

One night they were sitting at the table. Mark was studying for his finals, and the princess was pretending to study for hers. But inside the geography book that she had open, she had hidden a letter from her older sister, which she was reading over and over again. It was a letter of congratulation on her engagement. It was a letter about love. Her older sister wrote that if she wanted to know if Mark loved her so, it was in his kiss. She wrote that Mark should make her feel like a natural woman. She wrote that, if Mark had any other girls, she should not care about his other girls, if he would just be good to her.

The frog hopped up on the table, and the princess closed her book with a start. The frog snapped at a fly with its long tongue and said, “I am leaving for the highlands tonight. Your father has agreed to come and speak on television with me tomorrow night, at the site of the camp where he had to work. I will apologize to him, in the name of the new system, and he will accept. This will show the people that the work camps were a mistake, and that I am against them.”

“Good,” said Mark.

“Good luck,” said the princess. She thought about offering to go with the frog. To carry it in her handbag, perhaps. But then the frog’s supporters were there with the taxi.

On television the next morning, a man from the rich country of supermodels and gossip columnists said that his company owned all the rights to talking frogs. Any talking frogs not licensed by his company were violating the trademark of a famous cartoon character, and his country would enforce its company’s rights by any means necessary.

Then a man from the government called the frog a terrorist.

“This is getting bad,” said Mark.

“Let’s go,” said the princess.

They drove Mark’s old car to the highlands. As they got near the camp where her father had worked, the princess saw more and more tanks and soldiers. Finally they came to a place where the soldiers had blocked the road.

“No one can go past here,” said a soldier. “This area is only for soldiers who are hunting terrorists and copyright violators.”

“Wait,” said another soldier. “I recognize her—it is the princess from the old system. I guarded her family for many years.”

“Oh, guard, guard!” said the princess.

“Come,” said the guard. “I will take you to your father.”

She kissed Mark and got on the back of the guard’s motorcycle. They flew over the rough roads to the site of the old camp, which had become a museum and television studio.

“You don’t have long,” said the guard. They heard the sound of tanks and helicopters. “I’ll wait here.” He gripped his handlebars nervously.

The princess found the frog in its dressing room, surrounded by clothes and makeup and bright lights. “Frog,” she said, “they called you a terrorist, they are coming to arrest you.”

“Ah,” said the frog. “So it ends.”

“You must escape,” the princess cried. “Come, get in my handbag.”

“Do not be foolish,” said the frog. “You do not want to run away and hide in the forests to fight for the new system. You do not even like the new system. You are getting married and becoming a teacher. Go back to your life.”

“Frog,” the princess said, “I will give up that life to save you. I will go with you.”

The frog stared at her. Its throat sac expanded. Then it looked away. “It will not work,” the frog said. “They will search your handbag. They will search everywhere.”

“Kiss me,” the princess said.

The frog flushed dark green. Without a word, it hopped up onto the makeup table. The princess leaned over and kissed it.

There was a flash of light; the cold lips touching the princess’s turned warm. When the princess opened her eyes, there, where the frog had been, sat a beautiful woman, only a few years older than she was.

The woman did not have any clothes on. She got up quickly and dressed herself from the clothes hanging in the dressing room.

The princess sat down.

“Well,” said the woman who had been a frog, “I thank you. If you ever want to find me again, ask your father about the old witch. She will know where I am.”

“Can you kiss me one more time?” said the princess.

The woman who had been a frog frowned. “Well,” she said, and stopped. She turned red, and then she turned white, and ran her hand through her short dark hair. “I suppose.”

After the kiss, she left the princess sitting alone in the dressing room, listening to the sound of helicopters landing and soldiers running.

The princess still did not know what she wanted.

But she would have to decide soon.