Frog

I can’t bring myself to write all the words that came out of his mouth, and I tell you, Sensei, I am mortified that Northeast Gaomi Township has produced this sort of youngster. I picked up the first thing I could see, a signboard on which the origins and prices of fish for sale were written and held it as a shield to ward off the thief’s attacks, each one more vicious than the last; he had murder on his mind. The board took the brunt of his skewer attacks, but I didn’t pull my right hand away quickly enough to avoid being stabbed. The blood flowed. Sensei, my mind was in turmoil, I simply didn’t know what to do except retreat in the name of survival. I stumbled backward, and was nearly tripped up by baskets of fish and signboards more than once. If I’d fallen, Sensei, I wouldn’t be writing you this letter. That savage punk would have pounced on me, resulting in either my death or serious injury and a life-or-death race to the hospital. Sensei, I don’t mind admitting that I was scared to death, that my inherent cowardice rose to the surface at that moment. My eyes darted from side to side, hoping that the fish sellers would come to my rescue. But they just stood around, arms folded, watching — some indifferently, others with shouts of encouragement. Sensei, I’m worthless, clinging to life. Instead of raising a hand in defence, I let myself be victimised by a teenager. I heard a series of sobbing cries for help escape from my lips, like the pathetic yelps of a whipped dog:

Help me… help me…

The boy had stopped howling by then — he hadn’t ever really cried — and was glaring, his eyes round as saucers, with hardly any white showing, the irises like a pair of fat tadpoles. Biting down on his lip, he glowered, paused briefly, then pounced again. Help me! I screamed as I raised the signboard, and was stabbed in the hand a second time… more blood… and another attack, and another. I kept screaming and backing up in a single-minded cowardly retreat, all the way out into the bright sunlight.