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The eggs of a Xenopus frog are spherical - black on top, clear underneath. When they are fertilised, they flip and the clear side turns upwards in a moment of pure and precise science. It’s beautiful, whether in the pond or the petri dish.

 

Someone had told Rachel once that she was playing God. He meant it in a bad way, but she quietly appreciated the sentiment and made a mental note to block him from her messages. 

 

She had spent the past four years working as a lab technician at a mid-table middle England university. The science department was housed in a 1960s block, which had large rectangular windows overlooking the bus stops and the freshers’ halls. At this time of the year, Rachel’s boss, Dr Willis, taught the second-year biochemistry students a module on the manipulation and function of DNA, which she illustrated by mutating xenopus eggs. It was about disease prevention really. Dr Willis looked at life through the lens of being able to fix something, while her students got pub anecdotes about the little monsters they made - tadpoles with six eyes or two heads.

 

The mother frogs lived in stackable plastic tanks in a storeroom in the science block. Fourth floor, at the back of classroom 7B. This was Rachel’s domain. The space was illuminated by a line of fluorescent strip lights that cast a dull, greenish glow, not unlike being in a pond, she imagined. The mother frogs floated, suspended, biding their time before being harvested for their next clump of perfect round eggs. Their long fingers were invariably splayed like they were waving. White bellies soft and vulnerable.

 

It was in this hidden space - quiet, careful, intimate even – that Rachel found her peace. She had recently begun to shrink from life. Friendships had started to feel burdensome. Group chats had become exhausting to the point that she archived them. She became mute. She spent her days among students with their banter and their hangovers and their casual sex, but it was all so loud. 

 

There was one student who caught her eye though. Or rather, she recognised that she might have caught his. His name was Stephen and he wore checked shirts - brushed cotton and soft-looking. He had jaw length, nut-brown hair and short hamstrings so he walked with a bounce on his tip toes. There was a gentleness and a preciseness about the way he handled the pipets and mixed the solutions. She enjoyed the way his tallness curved itself over the microscope, long fingers poised on the focus dial. Thoughts of him began to dilute the loneliness that had quietly seeped into her life.

 

Every moment of eye contact became a tiny proof that he saw her. Every time he didn’t make eye contact illustrated his shyness and the depth of his feelings. The fact that he never missed lessons, that he enjoyed his work, that he sometimes left a book behind or dropped a biro in a particular direction – she gathered it all into an irrefutable body of evidence that he loved her. 

 

Rachel embarked on time consuming fantasies in which they were together. One involved bumping into Stephen in the university canteen on an autumn day - condensation on the windows, a basket of flapjacks on the counter. In another, they would find themselves coincidently sitting beside each other on a bench in a park and she would talk through complex theories of fluid mechanics. She kept Stephen under close observation – noticing his rucksack, the texture of his jumper, his fingers so she could picture them in her home and on her body. 

 

She carved out these fictious moments so meticulously that after a few weeks (five) she was absolutely ready when he asked her a question in real life. Where do you get the eggs? It was a question that no student had asked before. He asked it calmly. She fancied there might have been a pinkness in his cheeks. 

 

Rachel harvested the xenopus eggs once a month as she wanted to create the notion of a natural cycle. This followed a routine of injecting the mother frogs with hormones and administering structured periods of daylight. 

 

It was an autumn day. There was condensation on the windows of the classroom, textbooks stacked on the counter, and Rachel found herself inviting Stephen into her storeroom. She lifted the tanks down and showed him how to pick up the mothers, how to squeeze them gently and rhythmically, stroking in a downward motion to release monochrome eggs into a tray. It was thrilling, and she felt lost. And found.

 

But Stephen was nervous, and when it came to his turn he faltered. The frog shrank from his grasping hand and he had to reach right into the corner of the tank to snatch at it, dipping his shirt sleeve in the process and then dripping onto the floor. Once in his hands, he gripped the frog so tightly that its glistening skin puckered around its neck. What Rachel had imagined would be gentle dextrous fingers were slightly shaky and irritating.

 

In a few disappointing movements Stephen had revealed himself to be ordinary and Rachel felt exposed. Paralyzed with fear, the frog was unable to lay any eggs and Stephen collected his bag and left apologetically, damp rising up his sleeve. Her immediate instinct was to clear up the traces of him. She mopped the floor. Dried off the surfaces. Put a few extra flies into the frog’s tank and secured the lid, placing it on a high shelf furthest from the door, along with her imagined life.

 

When, a few days later, the most recent batch of Frankenstein tadpoles wriggled free from their gelatinous casing, there was the usual awe, but Rachel didn’t come to witness it. The students made their notes, recorded their findings and then emptied their petri dishes into the deep freeze. These tadpoles were never made for living and this was the kindest way.