\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>– It\u2019s what Cumulus clouds look like, Tamika whispered to \u0218ercan while holding him in her arms. Look how quickly they move on the sky! Mmm, they look like tiny cauliflower blossoms.<\/p>\n– Cuuumuuuluuus, \u0218ercan said.<\/p>\n
– Do you want to nibble on some Cumulus? Tamika said, laughing as she caressed \u0218ercan\u2019s belly with her hand. My little trophy! she said to the child\u2019s belly.<\/p>\n
– Cuuumuuuluuus.<\/p>\n
– Say aaaaaaaah…<\/p>\n
\u0218ercan was sucking his left thumb as Tamika reached onto the sky and grabbed a fresh piece of Cumulus. She tempted \u0218ercan by handing him a few blossoms she held between her thumb and her index finger, but the boy kept sucking his thumb, until Tamika smacked it. She only managed to get the child to give the finger up after she smacked it more vigorously. Then, she noticed: the nail had been removed and the tip chewed on until it bled.<\/p>\n
– Tongue out!<\/p>\n
\u0218ercan smiled stupidly and, frightened, turned his head to one side and showed her his red tongue. Tamika placed the Cumulus blossoms on it.<\/p>\n
– Now swallow!<\/p>\n
\u0218ercan kept his tongue out.<\/p>\n
– If you don\u2019t swallow, it will melt. Don\u2019t you want it?<\/p>\n
Tamika took a second serving of Cumulus and made a ball out of it. \u0218ercan \u00a0looked at the round cloud with wide eyes and started to drool.<\/p>\n
– You\u2019ll get one too, when your nail grows back.<\/p>\n
– Sssuuuluuuluuusss, \u0218ercan mumbled.<\/p>\n
Tamika stuffed the half-melted cloud in his mouth.<\/p>\n
– Cuuumuuuluuus.<\/p>\n
– Yeah, we call everything Cumulus around here. We are that kind of people.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
The frog<\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>The hut in which \u0218ercan lived with his parents had a pleasant look and was covered in green moss. Rather oval than round shaped because of the green fluffy moss, it looked like a giant tennis ball. Just in case the thought crossed your mind, the answer is yes \u2013 \u0218ercan did try to eat the hut.<\/p>\nAnother thing: the hut came with a frog at the entrance. Who knows if it was real or not \u2013 the truth is that it looked very alive. Anyone sticking his neck out with the conviction that the frog was real might well be left without it. The frog went RIBBET, RIBBET. The oddest thing: it didn\u2019t move, as if it had been born and would eventually die there.<\/p>\n
Every time someone stepped on it, the frog blinked and uttered RIBBET. The clever Tamika glued a note on the frog\u2019s back, which read \u201cdoorbell\u201d. The visitors could step on the frog whenever they pleased. But I\u2019m not saying it was the only doorbell in the Sher Khan tribe.<\/p>\n
The frog business had its shortcomings. Whenever \u0218ercan was asleep, someone would step on the frog and the RIBBETS would wake him up. The passers-by couldn\u2019t resist stepping on the frog, as well. \u0218ercan wondered why everybody stepped on the frog.<\/p>\n
There was only one person who had a special relationship with the frog, which they used only to call the family to dine in the garden or in case someone accidentally locked themselves out. Otherwise, that person \u2013 she \u2013 stepped gently on it when her son was asleep. Tamika rarely stepped on the frog.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Andrei Mocu\u021ba Translation from Romanian by Nigel Walker and Cristina Baciu, MTTLC student\u00a0 \u00a0pentru versiunea rom\u00e2n\u0103 click\u00a0aici \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u0218ercan was the last descendant of the Sher Khan tribe located somewhere in Eastern Africa. The following pieces of information are not meant to be strictly biographical and it would give me great pleasure if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[925,22],"tags":[912,922,1160,403,580,1116,312],"class_list":["post-8734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-egophobia-35","category-short-story","tag-andrei-mocuta","tag-cristina-baciu","tag-egophobia-35","tag-mttlc","tag-nigel-walker","tag-short-story","tag-translation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DakB-2gS","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8734"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8974,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8734\/revisions\/8974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egophobia.ro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}