BLACK ADDER! BLACK ADDER!

SINGAPORE--I must apologize to Rowan Atkinson for stealing the title of his TV series. I have no right to it. It was only a big non-venomous snake.

Went jogging in the cemetery again today. Another beautiful kingfisher, a squirrel, and, suddenly, a frog! Hopped practically underfoot. I only realized the method in its madness when the black snake uncoiled onto the path after it. I stopped to watch the snake and the snake stopped to watch me. So smart the frog. The snake "rewound" into the grass.
Around the corner an unchained dog barked and chased me off its territory, the HDB site development office.

The frog got away this time. "Go forth and multiply! Make babies!" I want to tell it, to echo the voice of the Singaporean government to its citizens. After all, amphibians are suffering a sudden inexplicable decline worldwide. And as the frog goes, so go the snake and the kingfisher. But what's the use? The frog, the snake, the kingfisher--they represent the past. Just around the corner, the dog, the HDB office, the signboard announcing "Yan Seng, Exhumation Services"--they represent the future.