Syke

There's A Toad In My Knee

When I was a kid, my Mum would tell me things like there’s
a toad in my knee.
Of course, being at the ripe age of 4 or so, I believed her.
I don’t know why she told me that. She’d tell me that if I
look closely at my knee, I could see the toad inside
breathing and I really did see it breathing. At that time,
I think the breathing that I actually was actually the
flexing of my knee. Anyway, the story went on for some
time. A long time actually. She at first told me that
there’s a tadpole in my knee and it’s growing into a toad.
Then, as a few months pass by she’d say the toad is getting
ready to come out of my knee. She’d continue on that when
I’m sleeping the toad will be struggling and it’ll just pop
itself out of my knee and would hop away happily leaving a
big hole for a knee behind. She’d say that they might send
me to a hospital to get rid of the toad. But they had no
money so they might as well get a knife from the kitchen
and just slit it right out. This is usually the case
whenever I’m naughty.

Plus, the fact that I had a very active imagination didn’t
help all this. At that time, God knows what I did when I
was small, my knees would creak loudly and my Mum (in her
usual matter of fact voice) would say that the toad is
croaking and calling its friends.
Despite all this….i was never afraid. I think it’s due to
the fact that I couldn’t care less about the toad and
thought that it would never hop itself out of my knee just
as long as I behaved myself. That was my reasoning. Of
course, all that would come crashing down whenever my Mum
points at my knee and said it’s going to grow really big.
Then there were a couple of additions to this toad story.
She said its female and it’s pregnant and it’s about to
give birth to little baby toads and they’ll all be in
around my body.
Now that was scary.
Then one day.. she pointed at my other knee and said
look….that’s the father toad.
This went on for a very very long time. I got so accostomed
to it that I couldn’t care less and presumed I was just a
sick child.
h