In the beginning, I am all brown.
It’s the end of the hot season. Or the beginning of the cold season… I can’t tell. It doesn’t matter anyway.
I’m walking through the swamp, and trees drop their leaves as I pass. For some reason, I’m not surprised by this, but when one leaf starts falling toward me, I am.
It’s all brown, too. It has five points and a stem: a head, four legs and a tail.
Frost has touched one of its points, and it spreads; coating the entire leaf.
When I look down, Frost has my foreleg. I begin to panic and struggle, but he only sinks his teeth in deeper. He has half my leg in his long mouth, and I think he’ll roll any moment; a spinning white log dismembering me.
Then I see the fireflies in his eyes. Or his eyes made of fireflies… I can’t tell. It doesn’t matter anyway.
‘I am Frost,’ he says with his eyes, ‘I am Crocodile. I am Death.’
Suddenly, counter intuitively, I’m no longer afraid and he releases me.
Starting with my bitten leg, my body grows cold. In seconds, I’m so cold I’m burning. I am beginning to hiss with pain when I slowly go numb.
Then, there is peace. Everything is sharper, clearer. I know I feel better now than I will ever feel in life, but I don’t want to be dead. Not yet.
‘You are mine,’ Frost says.
I think about this. ‘No, I’m not.’
Frost smiles. A real smile, not the perpetual smile of typical caimans. ‘You misunderstand,’ he says, not unkindly, ‘I do not mean that Frost-Flame is mine; I claim only Frost-Flame’s shell. You cannot deny me that.’
‘I won’t,’ I promise him. He beckons me forward, and I lean over the water.
Frost touches his nose to my forehead. ‘Go. Enjoy the time between.’
I will live life to enjoy it, but I won’t forget that death is a part of life. Or life’s a part of death… I can’t tell. It doesn’t matter anyway.
In the end, I am Frost-Flame.