Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

23 Oct 2002, 15:55 p.m.

I don't know why I started talking with Leonard about…

Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2002 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.

I don't know why I started talking with Leonard about a universe in which people can turn into frogs and back whenever they like. But the scenario envisioned (which I hereby invite anyone to use as the framework for a cute fantasy story) concerned the parish priest, who feels sad because every Sunday all his parishoners turn into frogs and go to the swamp to have fun and avoid having to go to church. Eventually the priest decides to turn into a frog himself and minister to his flock out in the swamp weekly.

Funniest detail: if a human is wearing a hat when he transforms, then the resulting frog wears a tiny facsimile of that same hat. I love envisioning that.

Also, one might make mention of a frog in a well, who every day can go up two bricks but slides back down one, and who meets a frog who lives in a huge lake much wider than the first frog's well. This is unbelievable to the first frog, but that doesn't much matter, as the well water seems to be heating up....