This story is inspired by the following words:
Island, grass, hat, water, ball, rock, bridge, iron.
Padland
The streetlights were on by the time Ashok got the hard drive running. He had begun with the mik still wet in his cereal bowl. The snakepit of cables and adaptors covered a good chuno of desk, forcing his mouse and keyboard to a side ghetto. Many had required detailed online searches, and prices close to triple plug. The hard drive had a plug like a kettle, and hummed.
But after some digital thinking time a capital letter popped up to prove the device was working. Ashok sipped his rum and coke, an ice the shape of size of a squash ball tickling the rim. Last time he saw that letter his drink had been a glass of orange squash.
He was not sure if he would recognise the saves. Time made no difference to file saves, but it felt like the names would be unreadable, like mouldy books in an abandoned library. But in a folder marked Padland were two dozen icons of a dancing frog, labelled by date and time. He had been a meticulous child.
With a double click the screen went black. Then the pink fluffy text appeared on screen, something he had completely forgotten about, but now screamed back into his memory. He was sure he knew what came next, and he was correct. Dancing through the darkness below the font came a line of dancing frogs. The one at the back had the leopard skin and knobbly stick of a caveman. The leader spun a bejewelled can, and waved his silken top hat. Their friends in the middle wore a selection of historical clothes, from the ruffs of Tudors to the glistening armour of the Roman empire. Each stomped to the bleeping theme tun in perfect harmony.
t was the purity he remembered most. Guiding your little gang of frogs all the way from the cave, to a civilization that shot rockets into space. A perfect filler between the end of school and tea time. Even if Ashok managed to trap a few drops of this simplicity, it was every inch of converting cable.
He had vague memories of his final game. Something medieval. The frogs had been carving a church into the rock near the river. Making a calm place to get water. A little rural idyll framed by green grass. He would drink his rum, improve their island, and find some peace. Rain pattered on his bedsit window, and muffled the police siren.
The mucky digital smog was not a feature he recognised. An unending grey cloud blocked all sign of his tribe of amphibians. He scrolled his mouse wheel to zoom in closer, one breath tight in his throat.
The world revealed itself like the view from a plane smashing through the mist. Ashok looked at this creation, and thought of car parks. Iron bridges laced across the once green world. Macadam ran between then, flanked by brutalist structures of windowless concrete.Like spotting ants at a picnic, Ashok noticed his frogs. These were not the comedy participants of before, but walked in sedate lines two or three. Yellow robes covered their bowed legs, and triangular hats covered their bulbous foreheads. The deep melancholic notes of a flute replaced the synthetic jolly jangle of before.
The frogs stopped. Removed their hats, and held them between sticky fingers. And one by one by they rose to heaven.
Ashok had the option to press escape. Switch off, and return to watching videos of Padland online. Other players returned to give their frogs apples.
He rained frozen as the frogs floated towards him, until their green sky smothered the screen. The ice melted in his glass.
