It wasn’t late.
That’s what I remember most.
The pub had just closed, but the streetlights were still warm, glowing softly through the rain. The kind of rain that doesn’t soak you immediately—just enough to make the pavement shine and the air smell clean. We were laughing, talking nonsense, walking home the long way because neither of us wanted the night to end yet.
The road was quiet. No cars. No voices. Just our footsteps and the gentle rhythm of rain.
Then my friend stopped.
Not suddenly—but with purpose.
He lifted his foot and froze, hovering above something small and dark on the pavement. I leaned closer, squinting through the drizzle.
“A snail,” he said, with a wrinkle of disgust.
“I hate snails.”
He laughed—a short, careless sound—and raised his foot higher.
“I’m gonna stomp on it.”
I remember saying his name.
Not shouting. Just… saying it.
The way you do when you think someone is joking.
But he wasn’t joking.
His foot came down hard.
The sound was wrong.
Not the soft, dull crunch you’d expect. It was sharper. Heavier. Wet in a way that made my stomach drop.
He froze.
So did I.
For a moment, neither of us spoke. The rain kept falling, indifferent, tapping against the ground and our jackets. My friend slowly lifted his shoe.
It wasn’t a snail.
It was a small frog.
Or what was left of one.
The world felt suddenly too quiet. My friend stumbled back, his face draining of color. He started swearing—quietly at first, then louder—as if words could undo what had just happened.
“I didn’t know,” he kept saying.
“I thought it was a snail.”
The frog lay still on the pavement, its bright skin dulled by rain and shadow. Something so alive just moments ago—now nothing at all.
I felt sick.
Not just because of what happened, but because of how easily it happened. How quickly cruelty slipped in under the cover of a joke. How simple it was to destroy something just because it was small… just because it was there.
We didn’t laugh anymore.
The walk home felt longer than it should have. Every step echoed. Every puddle reflected something darker than the sky.
That night stayed with me.
Not because of the frog alone—but because of the lesson buried in that moment:
that harm doesn’t always come from anger,
sometimes it comes from carelessness,
from thinking something doesn’t matter enough to be gentle.
And once you realize that—
you never quite walk the same way again.
