Wind-Toads at Night: A Very Short Story

We had a huge cold front come in right around 9:00 last night. The temperature dropped fast from 52-degrees Fahrenheit to 20-degrees Fahrenheit, and by our 10:30 bedtime the wind was blowing hard. Our bedroom wall is northwest facing and somewhat unprotected, with no wind-block trees or shrubs or walls. The property backs onto a college campus with a good five acre field that lets the wind streak across unobstructed whenever weather spins out of the northwest. Our bedroom wall gets pummeled by roaring air, our windows rattle and shake like something is trying to get in.

So I awoke at 12:30 to howling gusts that had to be hitting 50-60 mph. I could not sleep for nearly an hour until Marla woke up too and began immediately to chat with me about the howling wind-toads. She could have been a scientist so matter-of-fact is she about the things she brings up out of sleep.

I said, “Wind toes?” She said, “No. Toads.”

I said, “Really? Toads flying on the wind?” She said, “Nope. Just wind-toads…half wind, half toad.”

I asked if that meant we would have toast in the morning.

She said “Nope. Toads! We’re going to have toads for breakfast but we’re going to have to get the wind part out of them first.” I pointed out it might be easier to get the toads to jump off the wind.

We left it at that and snuggled in the dark with the wind howling like wild toads deep in a forest. But as I drifted into sleep, knowing how much I loved her, I wondered if wind-toads even knew that human beings existed. Maybe they were just doing what they’re supposed to do and would feel bad if they understood that they were scaring a couple of middle aged people out of sleep on a lonely late winter Wednesday night.