Writers as Kids: The Edge of Something

by Melissa Walker

Pictured: Paula Gilovich

At the place where muck grows on the edge of the lake, the bullfrogs used to croak long low planks of sounds, where now a tadpole may swim by, fat body trailing legs like weak twigs in the water, at the edge of the algae smell is a memory you can never quite get to. A thousand million stars above you, the bikes you never brought, your mom’s best friend’s boyfriend in his trucker’s hat. A roadie, you heard. Your dad who knows where. Just the kids and the moms and the boyfriend. No dogs, no cats no dads. The three girls two boys, and only one pair of each really had anything to say to each other. The others nothing except to say, ketchup please. Or just a strong swift smack on the back of his head, the stun, the silence inside and the look on his face when he turned around. Saving it up, he was saving it up to spend some day in another store where it wouldn’t cost him so much. You caught ten thousand million tadpoles that year. Became brave enough to just catch them with your hands in the water, you reached for their soft slimy skin. It was hard to believe they wouldn’t last and someday they wouldn’t live at all. So you caught them but then there was nothing to do with them, just hold them in a jar, till you hear your mom or the best friend yelling each kid’s name in a list. Hot dogs for dinner. Then may as well let the tadpoles go. Nothing to do with them anyway.