April 14, 2004
#68 :: Vinyl Frog
Somebody in a factory somewhere peeled two cast-vinyl frog halves out of a still-hot mold. The air reeked of curing toxins, raw polymers. She glued them together with adhesive or heat, and took up a spraycan or an airbrush to dust the top of the thing (along with all of its brothers, maybe laid out on a tray) with lurid, poisonous red. She let them dry a bit, maybe while pouring the next batch of vinyl, and then returned; she considered the red trayful of red frogs, the red under her nails, the smell of it in her nose, for only a second or two - likely, her boss was counting her output - and then grabbed a brushful of black: quick socks for the feet, and a couple dozen spots down its back. On to drying and packaging they went, and back to the cycle went she - mixing the vinyl again.