Dave looked down at his feet at the new egg he was standing over at the moment. He also remembered that as a chick he could ‘do’ a lot more things than he could do as an egg; equally he could understand things a lot better, and he was much more interesting in a ‘doing and moving around’ sort of way.
Yet nobody seemed to be interested or bothered or concerned as to how that change had happened; that growing from practically nothing into something that knew how to peck, waddle, slide, eat fish, and swim. All without the help or guidance of say a penguin manual, or training lessons, or school. So it was obvious to Dave that everything was built up from programs, which you just picked up, from somewhere, that somehow got into your head.
It was as if right from the start you were tuned into some penguin radio at a specific frequency, with all the knowing stuff in there like a story, that told your evolving mind how to build a penguin. All the instructions and knowledge were there to download just like on Penguintube, you just had to use the right resonating search term, and choose the most popular or highly rated instruction video, that didn’t leave you with too many spare screws and parts left over at the end.
What wasn’t obvious to Dave though, was how it all got there, and where it all came from. All that ‘knowing’ stuff; all that ‘how’ and ‘what’ you should be type of information.
He knew it didn’t all come from penguin DNA, that 1.5 gigabytes of data mostly went into describing what a penguin should be; its physicality, shape, nature, colours, body parts and all that stuff. You could barely define a robot penguin with just that. Perhaps it was a sort of booting program, that loaded everything else up, from somewhere, linked to other things that worked out a way forward, figured out what worked and what didn’t, that sort of thing.
Dave was very proud of his DNA, he had spent a long time working on it, refining it to the level of perfection that it was today. But it didn’t have anything in there about how to recognise fish types, swim after them and catch them, how to dive, or how to walk with a waddle.
Nobody had even mentioned fish when he was a chick,, and he hadn’t seen any films with them in either. But as soon as he got into the water and saw some, he knew what they were, and what to do; it was all instinct whatever that was, and wherever it came from. He already knew which ones were good to eat, and how to catch them.
He even knew which ones would try to eat him, and ones he had to swim away from, like the ones with big teeth, and whiskers, and black flippers that could come out of the sea to get you.
Or the dreaded giant black and white fish, with the big tall fin that had with glossy skin and wide mouth and sharp teeth and sneezed a lot.
He hated those type of fish, they made him very ‘nervous’.
It was also a mystery as to how his cells knew what they had to do; they all had the same DNA, even though 95% of it was ‘junk’ as far as he was concerned, but that seemed a bit odd considering how amazingly efficient he was, so what all that extra ‘junk’ was all used for was a mystery.
Somehow his cells knew what function they had, where they had to be and what they had to do in different parts. Who had told them all of that? Where had that information come from, all that knowing stuff, and what was right and what was wrong?
It was like the junk DNA was some sort of bootstrap program that downloaded all the information it needed from a cloud drive somewhere, which itself evolved over time both from his perspective and from the collective penguin mind, which meant that part of him was part of it, evolutionarily speaking. Dave looked at his body again. Whatever it was, was pretty smart, and with a good eye for style he thought.
He knew that basic life forms like algae used up nearly all their DNA programming on just being what they were, but then they didn’t need to fish or dance. But the idea for algae DNA must have come from somewhere originally, perhaps the planet got the idea from somewhere in a sort of dream.
He saw a patch of algae on a rock next to him, he scratched it with his foot and bits of it fell onto the snow. There thought Dave, that showed it. It made him feel better; it was good to know there was always something ‘below’ him in the evolutionary pecking order.
The trouble now though was that he had upset the balance, he was forcing it to evolve, in ten million years it might evolve to be a bigger penguin with teeth, and ‘get’ him. Worriedly he covered over the patch of algae that had fallen to the ground with some snow, and hoped nobody had noticed.
However he also knew that there were things he had actually learnt as he was growing up – things like shuffling. He had picked that habit up from his Dad, who used to do it when his Mum shouted at him.
It was a sort of programmed response, so Dave did the same, especially when he was shouted at. It was just the thing you did. He also used to arch his back when he put his feet into very cold water, which was quite a lot of the time.
He had seen his Dad do that too, and that is why he did the same. He just copied it, and did it without thinking now. It like sneezing loudly, he didn’t have to, it was just what he did. But he wasn’t sure why.
It was a total mystery. All that stuff had come from somewhere, some strange mysterious, all knowing thing that he couldn’t see. Even skills that he had like his unfailing sense of direction, his migratory urge and amazing sex drive.
That had come from somewhere too, something that stored things collectively, for everyone, everything, all in one place. He looked down at the egg again between his feet and shuffled. He then looked back up into the sky at the colours swirling and changing high in the sky, almost as if it were alive.
He had to come up with a better descriptive term than ‘collective penguin mind’, he couldn’t use terms like ‘hive mind’ or ‘herd mentality’, and as they didn’t fly, ‘flock’ was no good either. ‘Colony’ sounded too much like ants to him, and it made him itch every time he thought about it.
Besides penguins sort of huddled and bunched together, but that didn’t fit either, and it also didn’t really help describe technically what it was either.
His brain was starting to hurt now. This was tough going - so he tried to think of something else.
He looked up at the psychedelic lights in the sky and he thought of the song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. He then thought of Lucy from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; he liked that book series; it had been one of his favourites until he had lent them to someone and they hadn’t ever returned them. The trouble was he couldn’t remember who he had lent it to.
Mind you the films were never as good as his imagination. The same had happened with his Pinocchio DVD, he liked that film too, especially Jiminy Cricket, and the Blue Fairy, he wished he had a blue fairy.
He wondered what had happened to it, or indeed Pinocchio himself, perhaps he had been made into a wardrobe, or a cupboard under the stairs. His mind had lots of things coming in all together; DNA, Pinocchio as an under stairs cupboard, Lucy, the Blue Fairy, and Scarlet Johannsson.
He was now busy building up a synchronistic mind map in his head; you know one of those things with thought bubbles and lines connecting them.
He put them all down in some structure until he was happy with it, with him in the centre. Now, in his mind, he started drawing pictures in the Scarlet Johannsson bubble, and moved it closer to the middle, and threw a bucket of iced water over the Pinocchio one.
Concentrate! Dave thought, Concentrate!
Focus on the now, don’t let your mind wander!
But while he was on the subject, he remembered that he had been worried about his sex drive earlier in the year.
It had been such a long time since he had seen his wife, and he had completely forgotten how he was supposed to feel. It had become a sort of distant memory now, a vague idea. It had worried him, he had even taken to watching some natural history documentaries, to sort of get himself ‘back in the mood’ and that type of thing, but it hadn’t worked.
It was difficult to show love in a documentary, and it wasn’t so
mething he could talk to his mates about. He had tried that once and it was just met with weird looks and uncomfortable coughing.
He had worried that he was eating the wrong sort of fish, or not getting enough exercise, but a quick look at his amazing physique reassured him that it was certainly not any of these things.
He had told himself that it must have been that he had just forgotten the program in his head, or it was very slow to be loaded, nothing to do with him at all; just bad or inefficient programming, or slow functionality.
So he had been determined that when she came back that she wouldn’t get the wrong idea; that she wouldn’t think he was going ‘off’ her and not loving her any more, that he was still fit and healthy and virile. That he was still a fully functioning, switched on, real ‘bloke’ type of penguin.
It had taken her somewhat by surprise.
He looked down at the egg again.
But it didn’t say anything, nor did it shake its head disapprovingly, but then it didn’t have to.
Dave wondered if it was going to be a boy or a girl penguin. If it was a boy he could take it on fishing trips and teach it things. He tried to think of a name for it, he thought for a while, ‘Dave’ seemed like a good choice.
Penguins didn’t have surnames; they didn’t need them, besides they were very pretentious, like ‘Livingstone’. Then again if it was going to be a girl then he would have to think of something else, he could almost visualise her looking at him expectantly, waiting for him to do something, make a decision, just like her mother did.
Girl penguins seemed to know a lot more than boy penguins, he thought, they seemed to know the game from day one, like they were pre-programmed to know things in a way that boy penguins weren’t. It isn’t very fair, thought Dave.
Then again that was the way it was, the way it had to be, and who said life and nature had to be fair?
He decided to wait and see what happened and worry about it later.
Yes that was probably best.
Dave wondered if he himself had any control over the programming that went into what was going on inside the egg. Could he shape it, affect it in some way, influence it?
If it was all one big overall program that controlled everything, one giant operating system, could he change things, direct things, shape what was decided, dictate how everything turned out? Or was it all predetermined, set in place, fate, governed by set rules, and there was nothing you could do about it, and it would all be what it would be?
But that didn’t seem right, the thought of everything being predetermined didn’t seem correct. If that was the case, anything he did wouldn’t make any difference, and what would be the point of that?
He may as well not be there at all or just be a rock. What point would there be in him being there at all? What was his purpose? If he couldn’t change things or influence things, there would be no point in anything.
Whatever it was that had created everything could have just made everything as it would have been at the end of things, as they say on his favourite cook shows – “Here is one I prepared earlier…”
He looked down at his feet and shuffled a little on the ice to keep his feet warm.
Somehow though he felt involved in a process, part of a larger system - one in balance, in harmony, synchronised, growing, evolving, or at least that was the idea.
What he did and thought made a difference; it must do, affecting the overall direction to some extent, in some conscious way.
Obviously there were winners and losers in the process, all forming parts of a system that was there to work something out, to be something, grow, learn, achieve something; something BIG.
Yet at the same time it was trying to preserve something, something at the lowest levels, from the bottom up, otherwise it could have just been created, all outright in its final form, without the need to grow, adapt, and evolve. Even if it was very hit and miss.
He shuffled some more, and his eyes darted back and forth around the gritty snow in front of him. This was all getting intellectually very deep.
Dave wondered if his other penguin mates had thought about the same problem, but he suspected that they didn’t think much at all, about anything, except ice, snow, fish, light, dark, storms and of course polar bears.
Yet no other penguins could see things the way he saw them. They couldn’t see things from his perspective, but then nobody knew what he knew, yet did that matter anyway? Other penguins knew things he didn’t, and saw the world differently, that was fine too.
There was no point in trying to explain his perspective of everything to everyone else, they just wouldn’t understand, or appreciate it, and they would probably think he was mad anyway.
It made him worry though. About everything. Things were just not right, overall, there were a lot of things that ‘needed sorting out’, ‘resolving’ to stop him worrying about things. He just didn’t know what they were.
There was that polar bears thing again, back in his head. He had thought about it again and now he just couldn’t get it out of his head.
His wife had mentioned it a few months ago, and it was nagging at him again. Also there was that thing he had just thought about too, that ‘Why are we here?’ thing, that was there too in the same way, annoying, irritating, a sort of itchy mental feeling in his head, like a note out of harmony in the song in the world, and a pluck on the string in the music of the universe.
Dave liked the universe. He would look up at it in the middle of the night, in the harsh cold pitch blackness when the sun was away - when you could see all the far off tiny lights in the sky. He liked that time the best; it was peaceful, it made him feel humble, small, insignificant, and yet not so, as if he were what it was all there for, and that he was an important part of it and on some journey within it.
It made him feel like singing some nights. Well almost.
Dave was good at singing, he had a great voice, just as did all his mates. He knew it was a gift, a program that had come from somewhere, and not from his Mum or Dad that was for sure, but it must have been sent to him by something that wasn’t him.
Some days he loved to sing out loud and clear, and even his wife would comment at how loud and ‘nice’ it was.
He could dance too; he had amazing rhythm. He practised dancing a lot, and had shown his wife some of his moves, but she had just laughed and fallen on the floor, but he realised now that she was just jealous.
He wondered how she had learnt to recognise things that were funny, where the programming had come from for that, but clearly some programs weren’t perfect, there were errors here and there. He found lots of things funny, or at least he used to, especially when he was a chick.
He wondered if some programs were fixable. What was humour if it wasn’t a program? Just slightly different with everyone, or was it a sense like smell or taste?
Why were so many things bothering him? It was a lot for a simple penguin to take in, a lot to think about all in one go. Also why did he feel so responsible, with such a need to do something about it all, to sort all the problems out, and save everyone from polar bears?
He knew nothing of the real world, how it looked , how it worked, what it all meant, so why did he had this driving urge to save it, and what was it all to him anyway? Why did he care?
Dave had memories.
He could remember all of his past lives, which in fairness were pretty much all the same as this one.
The same patch of snow, same glacier, same sea, same sky, same fish, and the same routines.
He could remember everything that he had seen, the places he had been to, all he had known, all the experiences he had had, and all of the world he had been in.
He could also remember all the other penguins he had met; names, faces and events over thousands of years. As a result he was now a masterpiece of refined evolutionary engineering; a honed program of perfection, modified and developed over thousands of years, to be pretty much the same as he always was.
/> With all that knowledge though came great responsibility - he remembered that phrase from a film he had once seen. This time around though something different had occurred, or something had reached a point of change, some point of criticality, something important. He wondered what it was.
Dave knew about the collective penguin mind, combined together with an overall driving force. He knew about things happening for no apparent reason, things all changing in one go at the same time for some inexplicable reason, like everyone deciding to go fishing all at the same moment. Who had made that choice? He certainly never had, and none of his mates had ‘fessed up to having come up with the idea on their own, and yet everyone suddenly started moving at the same time like some sort of switch being pressed, some collective thought occurring naturally like some involuntary group decision being made all at the same time.
It was like some sort of invisible instant voting system that no one else could actually see.
Dave The Penguin Page 2