So There I Was

So there I was, hopping across the rocky desert thirsty as hell praying for salvation. I'm not religious by any stretch of the imagination, but I got myself into quite the fix. I was getting worried, anxious as to whether I was ever gonna get back home. Oh what I wouldn't have given for an ice cold beer and air-conditioning!

I'd gone too far to just turn around and go back. Lordy but I thought I could make the trek, until I'd been moving along for a seeming eternity. I struggled to keep going, becoming desperate, but knowing keeping going was the only chance I had at survival. At my wits end I asked the Almighty for help. I was just about to offer my soul and welcome the sight of the Pearly Gates when this disconcerting deafening noise, worse than a Bull Frog convention, filled my ears to runneth over and then stopped.

Huge two footed creatures, world's tall, pounded the ground as they approached me. By all means was I scared!! Then one of them split off from the other, but the one, he kept coming. I had nowhere to go, there was no protection from the pending death in this dusty rocky desert, and the being bent and reached towards me. Oh why couldn't I have a massive coronary and deny the intended fate this being had planned for me? Why wasn't I worthy enough to master my own destiny?

Then the darndest thing happened. The being scooped me into its leathery hand and carried me away from that desolate floor. Golly but there was air! A cool breeze blew across my parched back as he moved himself along that barren outland. I'll never know if he sheltered me from the blazing sun out of kindness or because he planned something more sinister for me and didn't want me to escape, but either way the shade was welcome for that brief time.

All was not looking swell, though, because the being previously with him had joined up with him again. Man, I kept a wary eye on that one, but he seemed to not be too interested in me. They conversed in some bizarre language I didn't understand and we seemed to be headed back in the direction we had started from. Oh this was not good at all...

Then, the creatures stopped. The second one split off again as I was carried over to some greenery. I could see water from way up in that lofty perch in the giant's hand. Perhaps it was a miracle, I don't know because this toad never believed in them, but I was being set down in the soft moist stuff near the water and the giant walked away, allowing me my destiny after all.


**~**

And so that's how I imagined what must have been going through the mind of a toad that my co-worker plucked from the quarry floor today as we went about our daily routine of locking railroad cars.