Dave The Penguin
By
Nick Sambrook
www.davethepenguin.com
Copyright © 2014 Nick Sambrook
Published 2014
All characters, incidents, and dialogues are fictional and not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to real persons living or dead, is purely coincidental.
The right of Nick Sambrook to be identified as the author has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. With the exception of excerpts for preview purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system.
ISBN: 0992889852
ISBN-13: 978-0992889852
First Edition
CONTENTS
Chapter 1 Dave The Penguin
Chapter 2 Dave Saves The Day
Chapter 3 Self Help Dave
Chapter 4 Something Fluffy This Way Comes
Chapter 5 Dave Heads South
Chapter 6 Dave Down the Rabbit Hole
Chapter 7 Dave's Cat
Chapter 8 Dave's Christmas Hat
Chapter 9 The Saviour Penguin
Chapter 10 The Penguin Cinema
Chapter 11 Dave's Laptop
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to
Genevieve, Charlie, and Daniel
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With love and thanks to Jan for the creation of this book, and
Bob Hardy for his inspirational thoughts and encouragement.
1 Dave The Penguin
Dave was a penguin, not just an ordinary penguin. He was an emperor penguin, and a smart one at that.
He had his evolutionary niche well sorted, and he lived his life on the edge. He was as much of a hermit as you could get, out here in the most remote and extreme part of the Antarctic.
Here it was as far South as it was possible to go, and it wasn’t too much of a walk to the sea for the ‘lads’ fishing trips.
He obviously had all his mates around him, which was good, especially when the weather got a bit much.
He had his ‘patch’, with his eco-friendly footprints on it, a nice warm coat, a full fish stomach, which he was very proud of, and a responsible job, that of looking after ‘the egg’.
When his wife eventually came back, after her several month long hen night party and daytime ‘ladies lunches’ with the girls, she would always nag him.
“Dave, you can’t just stand around all day. Dave, why don’t you do this? Dave, why don’t you do that? Dave this, Dave that.”
Years ago it always used to be an exciting time, noisy, busy, but fun.
Now though, he didn’t look forward to her coming home at all. It just wasn’t the same as the good old days.
Dave was quite happy though, generally he liked his life, it had always been the same, and every day was just like the next. It was very consistent here, he liked things the same, he liked routine.
It would be, sleep, wake up, think about fish, shuffle, check the egg, and defend it from predators. Which of course there were very few of here - no troublesome snakes, lizards or annoying seagulls to worry about here. Oh No…
Over and over, day after day it was very nice and samey.
He didn’t like change, it was ‘uncomfortable’, ‘worrying’, ‘unsettling’ and ‘irritating’.
One year however that all changed.
His wife arrived back one day with all the other girls, back from their long annual party. He greeted her with his usual shuffle and raised beak, and she did the same but it didn’t last very long. There was something different about her, and she looked like she had something on her mind.
Then before he had a chance to ask her how she was - which would probably have been sometime over the next few days - she interrupted him.
“Dave…” she said “Look, we need to talk. I’m not happy. I’m bored. I’ve been thinking about this for some time now, and I think we should have a trial separation, just for a while.”
Dave shuffled nervously but didn’t say anything.
“Being away…” She went on “It’s made me realise that life just isn’t the same any more. Well to be honest with you Dave, I’ve changed, and I think we are now just two different penguins you and I. We have become too different from each other now and we want different things. You just don’t seem to understand me anymore. You just don’t look at me like you used to, or fancy me, and well you just aren’t the same penguin that I married.”
Dave looked down.
He looked at the same patch of snow that he had stood on all his life, at the same feet he had always had, the same markings, the same body shape.
He looked up and around, the mountains, the sky, the glacier, they all looked the same too.
He then tried to think of anything else that may have changed. The things he talked about, his limited vocabulary, his routines. He thought about his views on life, his habits, what he did.
No, they were all the same too.
Even his mates, they hadn’t changed either.
He got on well with his mates, who were conveniently all called Dave too, which made it so much easier and uncomplicated organising the blokes fishing trips. It also meant he didn’t have to think when doing the customary ‘Dave’ nodded greetings on the way back to his patch again.
“Look Dave…” she went on interrupting his thoughts “It’s just that I have met someone else, and well, he makes me happy. He is just like how you used to be, funny, interesting, warm, considerate, passionate, strong, caring.
I just need that at this stage of my life. I just need that bit of excitement again. Honestly you would really like him if you met him.”
Dave didn’t think he would, but she went on to describe him in more detail anyway, and curiously he sounded just like how Dave thought of himself. In fact, aside from the situation, he would probably have made a good mate to Dave, considering.
He kept looking down and shuffled his feet a bit more.
“It’s just that I don’t seem to matter to you any more, Dave. Even your friends just know me as ‘Dave’s wife’. Sometimes I wonder if you even know who I am any more, or care, or even if you remember my name?”
Dave froze, and stopped shuffling.
“Or even if you can remember your own name some days, Dave” she went on.
He started shuffling again. He knew he didn’t have a very good memory, but he was fairly sure he would always be OK on that particular one.
“It’s just that you never seem to do anything, you just stand around all day. Why don’t you invent or build something? Say to protect us from the wind and the cold? Also, I don’t feel safe anymore, Dave, I am really worried about polar bears.”
She carried on talking, but he didn’t hear anything else, he could only cope with a few things in his mind at once. Certain things would take priority, and he was now just thinking about polar bears.
Now Dave had heard about polar bears, he wasn’t sure what they were, but he imagined they were large, probably bigger than the glacier, with teeth like a shark. They probably had claws even bigger than his, and dark green scales.
He was good at imagining.
Dave started to become scared, he thought about what he would have to do, how he would get all his mates together.
He was worried now, what would they do? He was sure he would recognise one if he saw it. It made him shiver, which was odd because it wasn’t even cold.
He always seemed to think of lots of confusing things when his wife was around. He shuffled some more, his eyes going back and forth looking at the footprints in front of him trying
to work it all out, trying to solve the problem….
“DAVID !” she shouted. He jumped, and looked up at her.
“You aren’t listening to me again, David!”
“It’s OK, It’s OK” said Dave, startled “Err yes, I understand, it’s fine, it’s fine.”
“You do?” his wife exclaimed, taken aback. Her face then started to smile around her beak, and she nodded up and down excitedly.
“That’s so wonderful, I was so worried you would be cross and upset.”
“No,’ said Dave “it’s fine. I understand everything. OK bye then…” he said blankly.
There was a long pause.
His wife’s expression would have changed if she wasn’t a penguin.
“Well…” she said “I have to say you are being very grown up about all of this. I was expecting you to be angry, begging me to stay, and telling me how you will change, and try to make it all work.”
“No” said Dave. “It’s fine, it’s simple. As you say, you have changed, you want different things in life, you want me to be something else, to change too, but also to be the same penguin that you first met. You are not happy, even though I am, and you want me to be happy being someone different.”
“Well…” said his wife confused “Well err, yes, I suppose that’s all true…” she said. “I have to say Dave that I am really surprised. I thought you would be really angry and upset. My friends, when I told them what I was going to do, said that I should just do it anyway, and go off without telling you. However I didn’t want to just do that, I didn’t think it was right. They have been trying to get me to do this for ages.”
“That’s strange,” said Dave “three of them came and said ‘Hello’ a few hours before you arrived back and they didn’t say anything. In fact they seemed quite pleased to see me.”
His wife looked even more confused, and a few creases appeared on her forehead.
“So,” said Dave “the only thing that has changed here - and the only thing that isn’t happy - is you. You are in effect a modifying chaotic variable force, an agent provocateur, trying to invoke motion on a controlling static mass in equilibrium, in an attempt to effect evolutionary change in the mind of a collective macro-organism.”
There was another very long pause, and his wife looked at him suspiciously.
“Have you been watching those natural history documentaries again Dave?” She asked him accusingly, with her eyes narrowed.
“No, it’s much more complex than that. I am actually a male program life form in a minimally effectible device, projected by my mind which is a static evolutionary harmonized bubble, that has decided that paradise is just life without change. I am several thousand years old. I am Dave of the clan Dave, and I am immortal. So I do not want to change, and I am very happy with things as they are.”
His wife just stood there with her beak open, unable to say anything.
“We have also perfected the cloning process too” he went on, “and are able to reproduce female penguins so they are the exact copy of the originals with no latency errors. Do you see that penguin over there? The one walking this way? She is a clone of you, and has been programmed to be my next wife.”
His wife immediately turned around to look, and she saw to her horror a young female penguin who was exactly the same as she had been twenty years earlier.
Exactly, with all the attitude, energy, looks and confidence that she once had.
“This process…” continued Dave “happens every twenty years just to remind me of all the effort I am saving. All the work, energy, thinking and change, to aid in the evolution and learning of the collective consciousness mind thing. It’s also necessary as even though I would be perfectly happy with you as you are for eternity, you are the one that is made to change by external collective forces, and there is nothing we can do about that, it’s just part of nature. It’s what you are driven to do. But please don’t worry about me, honestly I will be fine.”
There was another long pause, and his horrified wife looked at him in shock.
“I can’t believe you are doing this to me…” she said “after all we have been through.”
“I haven’t done anything” said Dave, “I haven’t changed, I am exactly the same, and I have been for many thousands of years. Besides I thought you were the one that wanted to leave? I was just making you feel better about it. Honestly go, I will be fine with the new keener, younger, energetic you. I am sure she can do all the same things you used to do for me, and I am sure she will carry on looking after me. Don’t even think twice about it.”
Then she started to cry. A lot.
“It’s no good” said Dave “you can’t try and invoke an emotional response in me, I am an immovable male object.”
“Please, please…” she sobbed, “I love you Dave, I don’t want this to happen.”
The young version of his wife walked up to them, and then carried on walking past, and completely ignored them. His wife suddenly looked very confused, and turned to Dave.
“But I thought you said….” she started to ask, but he raised his wing to stop her from saying anything else.
“It’s OK,” he said “we go through this whole process every twenty years, it’s fine. I love you just the way you are, it’s perfectly OK. I love you as you were, and I will always love you. We are both perfectly happy; it is just something else that is trying to invoke change.”
Then in that instant a preprogramed subroutine kicked in, and she changed to look just as she had twenty years ago, and so did Dave, although in his mind he still looked the same.
He still had the same amazing 45kg of toned physique, and the same good looks as he always had.
After all it was hard to re-sculpt perfection.
She was still sobbing slightly but was recovering well, the full enormity of what was going on gradually sinking in. After a while their memories would go back twenty years again to when they first met, which in Dave’s case didn’t take very long for the data files to be deleted and reset.
Their programs would start again and they would be happy, with no memory of the last twenty years. Several moments later she turned to him and smiled, slightly disorientated.
“Hello,” she said “what’s your name?”
“It’s Dave” said Dave.
“Dave…” she repeated “That’s a nice name.”
Suddenly Dave had a weird feeling, it was as if he had been here before.
A sort of ‘Dave-ja-vu’, moment.
Then it was gone.
“Here,” said Dave “you can have this egg, it’s just a ceramic one with a small nuclear powered heater inside, we use it to keep our feet warm. I am just off fishing with the lads, I will be back in a few months…” and with that he waddled off to the sea, leaving his wife happy again for the next twenty years.
Well that was the idea anyway.
After all, what more could you want in life?
2 Dave Saves the Day
Even though he was a penguin, Dave knew that his body was just a programmable biological device.
It was fairly obvious really when you thought about it, which of course he did, quite a lot of the time.
After all, out here on the ice, what else was there to do, especially if you were a smart and inquisitive penguin?
Which of course he was.
Out here on the ice plateau everything was very simple, black and white as it were, just penguins and ice, so things became obvious without all the other clutter and complications that existed elsewhere.
His wife had been away for a few weeks now, so he had plenty of time to stand quietly, to ponder on the bigger questions, to just contemplate things, well of what few things there were around anyway.
For example, he knew that he knew about things now that he didn’t know when he was a chick, and he had seen and done many things that he hadn’t done then.
He could remember them; remembered doing them, seeing things, and working things out. So someh
ow all that information, all that knowing, all that ‘experience’, had all got into him, or more to the point into his mind, somehow.
Even though no one had actually told him anything, no one had explained anything, and he hadn’t read anything, somehow he just ‘knew’.
Equally when he was a chick, he knew things that he didn’t know when he was an egg. He could hardly remember anything from when he was an egg.
Dave The Penguin Page 1