Leap Day
LEAP DAY
The Earth tilts on an axis and spins through space in a 24-hour cycle that makes night turn to day on repeat. We live on a clock.
The Earth also revolves around the sun every 365 days in a yo-yo like ellipsis. We also live on a calendar.
Once upon a time, we were just a collection of particles hurtling through space. Lucky us that we were eventually caught by the cradling gravitational field of our star, that brilliant sun that warms our skin and gives plants the will to grow. When we were caught by our sun, we settled in at an angle so that we’re held in an orbital ellipsis – at some times of the year further from the sun than at other times. That gives us our seasons. Recognizing this, we broke up those 365 days into 12 months in order to set some seasonal expectations and to have little milestones in the passage of time that make us feel like we’ve accomplished something in our short lifespans.
Anyways. We revolve around our sun with the other planets in our solar system. Our sun is also spinning on an axis, pulled around in an even bigger ellipsis by an even stronger gravitational field caused by a collection of billions of stars that all circle around a supermassive black hole (that plays the counterpoint to life so that there can be life).
Anyways. The sun is also a spinning ball, a nuclear reactor that converts gas into plasma and is so hot that only one primordial creature lives on it. These are the Flame Frogs, which isn’t a very good name for them, considering that they don’t look very much like frogs and are the titan primogenitors of fire-breathing dragons, but have that comparative moniker due to some similar behaviors. First, they’re amphibians – if you replace water with fire. Like terrestrial amphibians, they lay their eggs in pools that hatch into snake-like creatures that swim through fire, feeding on pure energy. Eventually, they grow leg-like appendages that end in giant pads that give them the amazing ability to “stand” on the tips of flames.
At the very beginning of spring, the Flame Frogs leap across the surface in such a massive migration that it affects the spin speed of the sun. This then causes all the other celestial bodies to slow down. Here on Earth, we end up gaining a ¼ of a day more per year. And that’s why we have an extra day in February every four years that we call Leap Day.
It’s a very special day.