An industrial fairy tale

Finally decided to post this....been sitting on my desktop for too long....
===================================================================
Once upon a time…long long Looonnngggg ago… in a land not far from here…
There existed an industrial wasteland… a dilapidated skeleton of a city…

And in this city, there lived a princess.
And in the wonderfully green outskirts… there lived a frog.

Let’s have a look at this rather wonderful frog first…
Imagine a perfectly normal frog….green mottled and slimy… with a marked penchant for large irradiated flies…
But ! on second glance… not a normal frog at all…

After all, how many frogs do we see walking upright, wearing a top hat, smoking a cigarillo… reading “the complete works of ShakySpears” and listening to an xpod** ?
( **for the techno geeks… an xpod is similar to an ipod in every way except for its near limitless memory…due to the fact that its hard drive is located mainly in hyperspace and is connected to the player via a small localized wormhole )

Well, our rather well read and technically cool frog is sauntering down a country lane, immersed in his book, with not a care in the world***
(***apart from the afore mentioned irradiated flies… which were wrecking havoc in the pseudo spatial gaming parlors…but that’s a story for another day)
When suddenly, a sweet singing stops him dead in his tracks… and the book drops to the damp ground, unnoticed… the froggie rock blaring from his headphones forgotten…
Quietly he creeps around the corner and see’s a vision of beauty lighting up the blasted landscape.

She’s sitting in her six-legged monkey drawn carriage, gently fanning herself while singing the sweetest melody the frog had ever heard from a cybernetically enhanced throat….

Ol’ Frog takes a swig from his hip flask, screws up his dutch courage….and hops across to the princess…

He looks up at the princess and asks “ croak croak croakty croak ?”

“Excuse me, Sir Frog… let me switch on my universal translator”
Click..whirr..click click whirr….
“Now, would you repeat yourself ?”

The frog clears his throat and once again pipes up…
“ My dear lady… would you, by any chance, happen to be a princess ?”

The princess looks down her extremely long nose at the tiny frog, while sticking her chin up into the air at a haughty angle ****
(****this mysterious trick of looking down on someone while sticking one’s chin in the air is a trick mastered only by women and the University of Blecklespeck long ago went bankrupt trying to solve it)

“Why, Sir frog, I shall, for this once, forgive your ignorance… putting it down to you being a simple country oaf”
“I am the Princess of 99”

Frog gaped at her..awestruck
Although he had no clue as to what a princess of 99 was supposed to be, it seemed suitably impressive for his purposes….

Bowing low, he murmurs “ forgive my insolence, O honored Princess of 99… your praises have long been sung far and wide across the land”

“ya right” she replies… somehow managing to look exotic even while frowning…
“do you know..frog legs are considered a delicacy in certain circles ?”

“umm…well…umm” his face going pale.

She sniggered…”Be at ease, Sir Frog…..am just fucking with u”

“oh well.. heh…nice one” still pale.

“So, el froggo… whatcha want ?”

“Weeeelllll…there’s this legend in our family that been handed down generation by generation….that we were once rather handsome humans and belonged to a great family of scientists but a genetic experiment gone wrong turned us into frogs….and only a kiss from a princess can cure this”.
“ewww…I hope you don’t expect me to… ??”
“I was hoping so”
The princess sat back thoughtfully…. Maybe something could be gained from this..
====================================================================
ooops...coz that'll be it till post 21st Jan... seems my clients have forgotten there's a recission going on....and my bosses have suddenly remembered there is one...sigh....
well....i can tell u that this will not end as expected....but many exciting things are yet to happen to froggie....
ps - thanks to CG for the inspiring this story......