Quiet night.
Or, well, as quiet as it gets.
Am listening to the repeating call of toads; the ‘ong-ongs’
of mating superiority and the burning need to breed. This is rather nostalgic;
it has been years since the last Symphony of Horny Toads, and they used to
sound every rainy season when I was a kid. I thought they had died off, or
migrated when the new housing development took out all of the surrounding
jungle. I guess they found good reason to get back in.
The toads used to invade the house as well. They’d hide
under our shrubberies or tall grass, which riled the dogs up sometimes. The dad
would rid of them using shovels. Too timid to kill them, I’d chase them out
with brooms or large buckets of water. Yes, it occurred to me that using water
against toads is like trying to blow bubbles at sharks underwater.
But I’m glad they’re back, even if they won’t be hopping
into the house (we don’t have grass anymore, or shrubbery. Now everything is
tiled-up and only the mango tree remained). They remind me of simpler times,
and the years where we’d discover the world that is (or was) our neighbourhood.
I remember cycling down the street and stopping by the
grassy roadside to hunt for grasshoppers, which were food for Minah the pet
Mynah bird. These were the smaller types; tiny things that shape like the tip
of a lalang no longer than a thumb.
Occasionally, larger grasshoppers would find its way to our house, and they
were palm-sized and far too scary-looking for me to catch bare-handed (the dad
used to catch them deftly, then plop them into the aquarium to feed the pet kaloi).
Some nights, giant moths would nestle at the ceiling of the
car porch, close to the light and away from the drizzle. They were beautiful
things, as big as two palms put together. They’d stay still and leave in the
morning, or they’d die and I’d watch them being swept away along with the
fallen leaves on the porch.
Used to be times when the flying termites would leave their
mounds, and turn the porch into a bug-filled apocalypse straight from hell. The
best way against those was to shut off the lights and seal off the house. They’d
leave to congregate around another source of light, and we only move out to
sweep the casualties into the drain.
We don’t get those anymore. No grasshoppers, no giant moths,
and I don’t remember the last time we had a flying termite catastrophe. But the
toads were back, at least, and on good days you might catch the resident
squirrel having its way with our mango.
We’ve had more animal-related incidents here, but I guess
that’s for another night.
For now, I hope the toads won’t carry on too far into the
night. As nice as it is to have them back, I’d hate to dream of libido-heavy
toads.
Goodnight, folks.
