[ WP ] A frog tells you that if you kiss him , YOU will turn into a princess .

`` You've been blinded,'' he croaks, hopping desperately after me to keep pace. `` Cursed. Your memory stolen from you.'' Have you ever heard a frog out of breath? It's a funny thing, like a series of increasingly uncomfortable burps. I walk on, trying to pay it no mind. 
 
 `` You were a princess!'' he cries, his voice trailing, growing distant. `` The kingdom beneath the mud! Our lakeside paradise! This was the love that we shared! I sang to you, clung to you, fertilized your spawn! Our children are waiting for us, my love!'' 
 
 Even as I try to ignore him, there's a memory surfacing in my head, the blurry outline of pondwater and mud. My feet have stopped moving. They're heavy, inert. `` Who cursed me then?'' I say, despite myself. `` And what kind of curse is being human? I could - I could stomp your guts out. You're nothing compared to me. A slimy bag of skin.'' 
 
 `` The Sorcerer Toad,'' he says, `` he turned you to a monster!'' He hobbles up to me, places webbed hands upon my foot. `` He made you swell to monstrous size, enflamed your blood, sapped the loving moisture from your skin! Ask yourself, my love, have you found happiness in this form? As you stretch up to the sky and view the limits of your horizon, have you found anywhere as peaceful as the placid depths of our kingdom?'' 
 
 There's something in my face that makes him suddenly unsure, that makes him stumble back, gaze dropping to the ground. When he tilts his head back up, his soft white throat is bared in supplication. `` There is... there is nothing more I can say to you. I would have you find happiness, in whatever form you choose. If our love still means anything to you, kiss me, and break the curse. But if not... I would not torment you with memory. Be free of me. Know that there is still happiness for you to seek.'' 
 
 I try to remember my father, my mother. I try to remember being a tadpo- a child! A child. I try to remember what I wanted to grow up to be. It hurts. There's something burning behind my eyes. He looks up at me, his bulging eyes eager, hopeful. 
 
 I stomp him into the ground. His soft fat body pops like a balloon, spills his guts all over my foot. `` Go to hell,'' I say. 
 
 I wait for the spell to break, for the false memories to fade, for the inborn certainty of my own humanity to come rushing back. His various bodily fluids slowly seep through my shoe. The air is mossy and wet and hangs around me like doubt, and for a moment I hate the entire fucking concept of magic, of transfiguration, of the possibility of becoming something other than myself. 
 
 I scrape his remains off on a log, and once again start on my way.
