After he was laid off that summer, Dad began to shrink. The first thing to change was his voice. When he addressed me, he cleared his throat often, each cough deeper than the last. Mom blamed it on allergies, and Dad blamed it on the heat.
But I noticed other things. He stopped mowing the lawn and playing tennis on Saturdays. At dusk, he wandered to the pond behind our house and stood motionless among the cattails as mosquitoes settled on his arms. One evening, I followed him. Mud clung to my sneakers as I walked. Dad was crouched beside the water, still wearing his pants and T-shirt.
“Dad?”
He turned violently. His eyes were a pale gold.
“You shouldn’t sneak up on people,” he croaked.
Embarrassed, he covered his mouth. I told myself I was imagining it. Children invent transformations when the world feels unstable. That’s what my English teacher always said. I stared at him for a moment.
“It started earlier this year,” he admitted.
“This year?” I probed.
“My grandfather became almost entirely amphibious before his death.”
I laughed because it sounded like a joke.
He didn’t.
“He retired to a swamp in northern Florida,” Dad continued. “My cousin in Brisbane can hold his breath underwater for twenty-two minutes without coming up.”
I waited for him to smile, but he stared across the pond.
“But… why frogs?” I finally asked.
“I wish I knew.”
After that, the signs became impossible to ignore. His pupils widened after sunset. The skin on his arms stayed cool and damp, even during August heat waves. Mom pretended none of it was happening. She turned on the television every evening and scrubbed dishes long after they were clean. Cabinet doors slammed. When Dad began catching flies out of the air with quick, practiced flicks of his tongue, she burst out.
“You’re doing this on purpose,” she said, her voice sharp enough to cut glass. “You think this is funny?”
“I don’t feel like myself,” Dad pleaded.
“That’s exactly the problem.” Mom stormed upstairs to bed.
Dad stared at his fingers. Thin webs stretched between them. By August, he could leap the width of the creek behind our house. Almost every evening, we sat together by the pond. The frogs called from the reeds. Sometimes, Dad slipped off his shoes and lowered his feet into the water.
“Does it hurt?” I asked.
“What?”
“Turning into something else.”
He considered the question for a long time. Moonlight drifted across the pond, breaking into ripples whenever a fish surfaced.
“Only if you resist it,” he said.
The night he left, it was unusually warm. I got up for a glass of water. I found him standing by the back door. His clothes hung awkwardly off his body.
“I can’t stay,” he whispered.
He looked back at me, memorizing my face. Then he crouched and leaped, disappearing into the pond with a splash. When I reached the pond, ripples spread across the water. That night, I left my bedroom window open. The frogs sang from the reeds. One voice rose above the others, sharp and mournful. My insides ached.
Weeks later, Mom hired someone to drain the pond because it attracted mosquitoes. After heavy rain, water sometimes gathered there again. On those nights, I heard frogs croaking. And every now and then, one of them sounded like Dad.
Swetha holds an MFA from the University of San Francisco and is an active member of the Writers Grotto, where she chairs the Literary Salon series. She has authored a memoir and three chapbooks. Her stories have appeared in Bending Genres, Ghost Parachute, McNeese Boudin, Gone Lawn, and others. Her works have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and Best Small Fiction.
Urban Pigs Press 
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