Mouths Full of Rain: How I Accidentally Started a Frog Cult

I didn't mean to create a frog cult.

It started with just one. His name was Cletus, named after a guy my dad used to buy pills from. Seemed fitting—sleazy and stubborn, like something that'd survive the apocalypse by digging itself into a crawlspace and scraping mold off copper pipes with its tongue.

Cletus regarded me through the glass like he understood I was broken. Like he accepted.

He was a dumpy tree frog. Litoria caerulea if you need to impress a vet tech. People call them "Dumpy" like it's an insult—like their chunkiness is a problem. These frogs don't care. They sag and drape on your window like melted pistachio ice cream with eyes.

You ever see something so ugly it makes you feel better?

Florida's already choking on invasive species. Cuban tree frogs were the initial invasion. They infest toilets, eat the natives, and probably your happiness too. Nobody invited them, and yet they're taking over.

I thought—if Florida's gonna get eaten whole, it may as well be by something that has a face like Cletus.

I did not mean to breed them. One frog became two. Then twenty. Soon the bathroom had the sound of an alien swamp during mating season. If the neighbors heard, they never knocked. Florida folks know when to turn a blind eye.

Tadpoles lived in takeout containers. Feeders took over the cereal aisle. I woke up one morning with a frog on my eyelid like a warning label that had sprouted legs. That's when it struck me—I wasn't accumulating them. They were multiplying through me. Like I was just the host.

Florida's invasive. Hell, the weather's invasive. Snowbirds, plants, lizards—everything feels like it quit halfway through evolving. Folks come here to rot in peace. It's like the whole state is a hospice for ecosystems.

So I thought:

If the apocalypse is already happening, why not cultivate it? If it's broken, why not break it on purpose? Why not fill the gaps with something gentle?

Release Site One was behind a Wawa. I had a five-gallon bucket of baby frogs. No speech, just tipped the bucket and let them go. The ground squelched beneath my feet, with an aroma of rusty teeth.

The frogs did not come pouring out like a jailbreak. They simply remained there. One blinked. One climbed up the rim of the bucket and looked back at me like Are you sure?

I wasn't. But I had to believe in something. So I said, "Go make Florida bearable.".

I did not expect anyone to notice them. I thought they would vanish like everything else. But then I noticed one stuck to a CVS Redbox machine, as though selecting a movie. Another sat in a broken birdbath behind Walgreens, baptizing mosquitoes. One rode a shopping cart partially submerged in a canal—a rusting hull of corporate afterbirth.

And I thought… perhaps they're working.

I started letting more out.

Parking lots. Hotel fountains. Golf course ponds. Behind dentist offices, under dumpsters, beside roadkill. Any place forgotten or doomed.

Church, but for frogs.

No notes, no permission—just buckets tipped and frogs crawling out like tiny monks on pilgrimage.

They spread. People started noticing.

At night, I’d see them plastered to bus stop ads for lip filler or watching traffic beneath Waffle House signs. They weren’t hiding. They were present. Like mold with intention.

I kept breeding. More than I could handle. Clutches of eggs alongside rotting yogurt and nicotine patches. Feeders infesting vents. Tadpoles in mason jars on the toilet tank. Bathroom floors squelching beneath my feet.

I stopped fighting it. Stopped going to work. Didn't matter.

They needed me. I told myself it was alright. Necessary. Holy.

But something was different.

The new batch wasn't like the others.

One frog had too many toes. One had a second mouth closed under its chin. One blinked sideways, then didn't stop—like it was trying to remember a life it never had. One croaked, and I swear the window shook.

The water smelled different. Thicker. Like mildew and static electricity. I tested the pH and ammonia—normal. But something was off.

I started wearing gloves, but my skin tingled.

I woke up congested, coughing up a greenish translucent something. I blamed mold—but mold doesn't hum.

Gloves, masks… then I just didn't care anymore.

Woke up one morning coughing, pulling a glob of green slime out of my throat.

Didn't go to the hospital. Didn't want it on record.

One night, in the mirror, I saw it. Skin behind my ears softening, greening—like steamed spinach on bone. My pupils were different. Wider, taking in something warm.

My body did not hurt. That's what scared me.

Change must be violence. This was surrender.

It started with my throat.

No pain, no swelling. Just pressure. A fullness swelling behind my Adam's apple.

Walking through the cereal aisle, I’d let out a low, wet, guttural sound—without meaning to.

A croak.

Not ugly. Not human.

It vibrated. Store lights flickered.

I looked around, ready to apologize. No one stared.

Not exactly.

A woman near the yogurt section turned and blinked like she’d just awoken from a dream. She smiled—not politely, but hungrily.

I croaked again.

She dropped her basket.

It kept happening.

I was solo in parks after dark, kneeling by retention ponds, croaking into stagnant air.

Not weeping for rescue.

Calling.

And they came.

Women.

Dozens.

Some in heels, some barefoot. Some in sundresses, others in work scrubs.

Drawn like moths to wet.

Slow steps. Wide eyes. Limbs loose.

One kneeled in the grass, palms flat against mud. Another crouched beside her, knees splayed, mouth open.

All of them staring.

Silent.

There was something within me now. Something broadcasting.

Pheromones? Maybe.

The croaking? Definitely.

But more than that—it was the way I reeked of algae and knew every soggy ditch in the county.

The way I shimmered under gas station lights.

It was power.

And I didn't need to know what it was to use it.

BY SKINS CARE AND HEALTH PRODUCTS: CLICK HEAR