What Room For Joy?

Bienvenido, says Paco. Please enter.

Pauline enters the hut.

Wraack-ack! comes from the bottle.

Frogs? Up here? says Paco. May I ask why you've brought them?

Ask them, says Pauline.

Sweezus has entered. Arthur hasn't.

Yeah well, says Sweezus. Just keeping an eye on them for science.

They will die up here on Chimborazo, says Paco.

Maybe not, says Sweezus. They've been salted.

Ridiculous isn't it, says Pauline. These guys and their salt. They sell it.

It's not the same salt, says Sweezus.

Paco is not all that intereseted in what salt it is or isn't.

Sit, says Paco. I will prepare lentil stew. Where is the other climber?

Went to look at the tombstones, says Sweezus.

Arthur stands in a sloped boulder field, among the tombstones.

People who have died on the mountain.

He thinks of Bolívar, and how he saw Time, with scraps in his pockets.

He hears chopping, from inside the hut.

He goes inside. Paco is chopping the onions.

Estoy desolado, says Paco, but there is only one of me, and three of you. For the climb, will you mind being roped together?

Ha ha, laughs Pauline. I won't mind.

Like how close together? asks Sweezus.

Paco stirs the lentils.

Not too close, says Paco.

Wrack-ack! comes faintly from the bottle.

See to your frogs, says Paco.

Sweezus gets up.

The froglets have now absorbed their tails completely. Normally, a moment of joy.

But here they are, three quarters up Chimborazo, in a bottle, smelling nasty onions and finding their new lungs inadequate.

What room for joy?

And now here is a face staring into their bottle. Not the kind woman who sprinkled them with water. A man's face, showing minimal empathy.

They're kind of gasping, says Sweezus.

Take them out of the bottle, says Paco.

The froglets are taken out and placed on the stone floor.

Sweezus gets out his phone, and takes a photo.

It rings.

An unknown number.

Hi! says Sweezus.

Guess what! says Terence. I'm in Hawaii. There's a swimming pool.

Cool, says Sweezus. I'm on a mountain, with frogs. Remember those tadpoles?

No, says Terence. Remember Cherry?

No, says Sweezus. (But he does)

My electronic parrot, says Terence. She fell in the swimming pool.

Bad luck dude, says Sweezus. She okay?

She forgot everything, says Terence. Even the square root of pie. And all the expressions.

The line crackles. A new voice. Pablo Vicente Maldonado.

Everything all right there? asks Pablo Vicente Maldonado. Where are you?

First refuge, says Sweezus.

How are the tadpoles? The children have been asking.

Crackle crackle.....brrr.

The call ends abruptly.

Sweezus is glad, not having wanted to answer.