Crickets are chirping. The path i was walking on stopped a long time ago, but i keep trudging through the weeds, sinking up to my ankles in the black mud with every step. Spanish moss hangs down from the trees around me. The branches are twisted with a strange beauty, as if they writhed at night, reaching up and out to the speckled sky and froze into that position when the sun finally rose. It is twilight and has been since i started years ago. An eternal limbo drifts through the rose-colored void overhead, but the feeling floats downward, permeating the entire area and myself with it. Eyes, yellow or green usually, glint from under scruffy bushes and out of hollowed tree trunks. They may be watching me. i was an intruder here when i started, but i do not know for sure anymore. Maybe i have always been walking. More insects should be swarming around, biting and irritating me. The only ones i know of are the crickets, though, and i've never seen them. Besides, the croaking of frogs can resemble that of crickets and there seem to be millions of frogs. Quite a few, at least. Pushing my hair back off my forehead again, i glance into a small pond and notice what seems to be a huge boulder sticking out of the muddy water, glistening with the dampness. Small patches of grass have taken root in the thicker mud stuck on the left side of the boulder. Suddenly, the huge rock shifts and lurches forward a few feets and settles again closer to the bank of the pond. One of the frog's giant round eyes shines for a second before being eclipsed by an eyelid and sinking back into the murk. i climb quickly back in a different direction. Not that it matters really. Everywhere i turn is the exact same different scene. A tiny bright orange frog has been riding on my shoulder for a while and now he asks, "What are you?"

"A human."

"Why?"

"i was born that way."

"But what makes you a human?"

i think about it for a moment, trying to come up with certain qualities and failing. i am no philosopher. Most philosophers are not philosophers. Finally, deciding to answer in a way suited to my audience, i reply, "Well, i am not a frog."

"So you are a human because you can not find any other thing that you seem to be?"

i suppose so, and i say as much.

The tiny frog seems satisfied with this and after inspecting the area of my shoulder closely, he settles down and closes his eyes.

Reflecting back on it, i do not honestly think that the large frog would have hurt me. All the smaller and medium-sized ones which are constantly leaping around me occasionly pause to stare for a bit, considering me an oddity in their swamp, but for the most part the creatures appear oblivious to my entire existence. i keep walking, wondering if the sun will ever fully set and if the trees will waken when it does.