The Ballad of the Frog Prince

Once upon a time, in a farcical swamp nestled deep within the Tropic of Delusion, there lived a rather corpulent Frog Prince. Not content with his royal lily pad, he stood before his own reflection each morning, puffed up his cheeks, and declared to the reeds:

“I am not a frog. I am, in fact, a cunning little mousedeer—a kancil, if you must know—who shall one day become an elephant of destiny!”

Now, such ambitions might be admirable in fairy tales. But this was no ordinary swamp—this was a place where absurdity reigned and credentials were measured not by merit, but by murmurs and muddy seals.

Our dear Frog Prince, keen to ascend the evolutionary ladder of governance, soon realised that to become an elephant, he’d need more than just dreams and delusions. He needed a degree. A scroll. A seal. A story. Something to wave at sceptics while shouting, "Legitimacy!"

So, he gathered a council—not of wise owls or noble beasts—but of hired fish, parrots with limited vocabulary, and a flock of bloodsucking bureaucrats disguised as leeches. He croaked to them:

“Declare to the realm that I, the Most Educated Amphibian, possess a degree so authentic, it glows in the dark with truth.”

The parrots squawked their pre-scripted lines on national branches, the fish swam in confused circles, and the leeches began stamping documents with great enthusiasm. A photo of an old diploma, freshly laminated with nostalgia and held by trembling toad-hands, made its rounds across the SwampNet.

The headlines were nothing short of theatre:

• “Amphibian Ascends: Frog’s Degree 'Identical' to Authentic Scrolls, Say Loyal Witnesses”

• “Local Frog ‘Verified’ as Elephant-in-Training by Committee of Paid Invertebrates”

• “Transformation Underway: From Swamp to Savanna, with Stops at University of Make-Believe”

But a wise old elephant, chewing quietly on sugarcane and common sense, raised a trunk and mused:

“Is it not odd that the degree can only be viewed under moonlight, with a frog-issued magnifying lens, in the presence of three chanting leeches?”

Those who questioned were swiftly relocated to the Bureau of Sudden Transfers, never to be heard from again.

At last, the day of proclamation arrived. Our Frog Prince donned a ceremonial robe made of banana leaves and a crown of golden algae. With full pomp and borrowed circumstance, he stood atop a podium made of stacked lies and croaked:

“Behold! I am no mere frog! I am a scholarly kancil! I am the elephant you’ve been promised! Vote me into the future!”

The swamp roared—or at least, it hummed in compliance. After all, the insects were subsidised, the mosquitoes pacified, and the crickets had signed NDAs.

And so, the tale continues. The Frog Prince leaps from pad to podium, a degree always in hand, yet truth always out of reach.

Some say he's now taking trumpet lessons to sound more like an elephant. Others claim he has commissioned a research paper on the spiritual connection between frogs and pachyderms.

But in the distance, the wise old elephant mutters,

“Let him croak all he likes. The jungle sees. The jungle remembers.”

[Bahasa]