Yet, surprisingly, everything was generally all fine, everything worked OK, as long as there was nothing wrong, but he had this nagging feeling in the back of his mind that there was a fundamental problem, something big, something that was going wrong with the world.
However, perhaps there was always something wrong, and he was just normally not aware of it, or bothered enough by it to actually care. He was just a simple penguin after all, so how could he change anything, what could he do about it all, and what real difference could he make?
Even if he could, what if he made the wrong choice, gave the wrong ideas, made the wrong suggestions to whatever this thing was that did all the programming, the decision making, the voting? How would it all end up?
Dave didn’t want that level of responsibility.
He was not designed for such big ideas, for big thoughts, on big problems. How could anything listen to such a small voice, it must know far more than he did anyway, and in any case how would it benefit him? It had never done anything for him.
He stood there on the ice sheet and felt just like a small black dot in a vast expanse of white, trying to get the thoughts clear in his head. A small bead of sweat appeared on his brow, trickled along his forehead, along his beak, and formed a tiny ice crystal at the end.
Two weeks passed.
In the morning of that fateful day everyone felt it. A change in the information in the air. A sense of something coming. A feeling. There was clearly a storm on its way, everyone knew it.
Even though nothing was visibly different, everyone could sense what was coming; the change in pressure, the smell on the air, the nervous vibrational tension.
The clouds in the sky looked different too; they moved faster and had different shapes.
Everyone started to get agitated, and it got very noisy, the peace and harmony of the colony was gone.
Later that morning things still hadn’t improved, and some penguins had started to huddle together, and others were heading off to the sea along the defined paths.
Dave had always thought it odd that everyone followed the same paths, until he tried being ‘different’ one day, and went ‘of road’, a rebel penguin, and ended up stuck down in a crevasse for two hours, alone until heads appeared above from penguins who had followed his new path.
God that had been really embarrassing.
He tried to concentrate. Something was definitely wrong with this situation; there was a ‘not right’ feeling in the air - and in his mind.
The sea seemed to be the wrong place to be heading towards, it wasn’t safe, but he didn’t know why. A few fights had broken out, and groups were forming, each competing with each other over what to do, where to stand and who should stand at the front or the back. Even eggs were starting to be abandoned as penguins began to wander off on their own; everyone was trying to work out what to do.
Dave’s head was buzzing. It felt under pressure, busy, and it ached, as if there was a lot going on in there.
Dave stood on his own. He closed his eyes and concentrated.
It was dark… that always surprised him for some reason.
He concentrated his mind some more, focused, and allowed the blackness to deepen and his imagination to live within it, to see where it took him.
He expanded his mind, and tried to get his head around the whole world, becoming mindful of everything.
He put himself into the world perspective, into the collective mind’s eye, and thought big thoughts - and big thoughts came back.
It was a surprise, both to him, and the thing that he was trying to get his head and mind around.
Nothing had ever done that before, but then you had to know what you were dealing with to be able to communicate with it, to perceive it, and then interface with it.
Like with anything, you can’t see something if you aren’t looking at it. It also helped if you knew what it was, and how it thought then you also had a reasonable chance of getting its attention.
It wasn’t like talking to a glacier, Dave had tried that, this had something alive as part of it. Glaciers were different, even though they moved, they weren’t alive.
Glaciers also just took ages to say anything, and weren’t interested in him; they were just full of complaining creaks and groans.
However, what he was communicating with now wasn’t like a penguin’s mind at all; it was bleak, cold, harsh, and very ‘big’ and ‘complex’.
It was only communicating with him now as it needed information, help. It was worried about something, something coming, a problem. But it couldn’t see, it couldn’t understand what it was or put it in context with Dave’s perception of the world.
It just knew there was fear, a threat. It had no real way of being able to describe or perceive what was happening, like a chick inside a giant egg that had sensed something. Fear.
Yet Dave could see, and understand. He knew what had to happen, and his thoughts, mind, and knowledge merged with this bigger thing. He worked out what was being ‘said’ and what was around him, what was coming and what needed to happen, all at the same time.
Dave now thought of himself as a program rather than as a penguin, a functional part of something bigger.
He had knowledge that he had to pass on. The thing that was bigger than him was worried too, probably because all the things that it was made up of were worried.
Yet it couldn’t see or understand why.
Dave knew what to do though. Dave had a plan, and the bigger thing knew what Dave was thinking.
Between him and it, something was ‘worked out’ and then it went away, and something changed.
With the information that Dave had exchanged he now knew that there was a giant storm coming; probably the worst one ever in history. It would be full of violent winds, dark clouds, blizzards, the worst conditions imaginable.
They all would not survive it.
The sky in the distance was already turning black, and the wind was getting stronger. Winds here were not at all friendly, they were very violent, and they carried ice that blinded and bit like beaks. They were unimaginably fast, and could lift a penguin up into the sky, and you would never see them again, or ever know where they had gone to.
Dave opened his eyes and a thousand pairs of eyes were looking at him, directly at him, expectantly.
Then as one, at the same time, and with one mind, all the other penguins started shuffling together towards a cliff on the side of the glacier. The cliff was facing away from the wind, it was somewhere protected where they would all be safe as long as they all stuck together.
The penguins that had set off towards the sea now all stopped too, and turned and headed back to the main group. It was as if an overriding program had kicked in, and they were all now following new instructions, new guidance.
Within half an hour they were all huddled up underneath the side of the glacial cliff, just as the snow and wind started to build up around them.
They would be safe. Directed by a set of coordinated thoughts and ideas, focused out of necessity for survival.
The storm was horrific, growing worse by the hour, the noise was like a thousand polar bears all roaring at once, but they were all safe, sheltered on the right side of the cliff.
The snow flurries billowed around them, and settled all around them, and drifted over them. Everyone was terrified and all they could do was huddle closer together. Occasionally funnels of spinning winds would pass over the plain where they had been standing before;
Dave had seen these funnels before in a film. They would have been sucked up by the tornado, off to the Land of Oz where there were lots of strange animals, long roads, and people that sprayed themselves orange.
The winds were indescribably fast and lasted for hours into the night, and they only died down when the sun came up the following morning and only then did they all begin to climb out of the snow
Where their nesting area had been was now several feet deep in snow. If they had stayed where they
had been they would not have made it. The seas in the distance were just a mass of froth.
Everyone climbed out of the drifts and shook themselves clear of snow and slowly waddled back to where they had come from to get back to normality, and resume the daily routines on the nesting grounds.
All except Dave. Dave was exhausted. His feet felt as heavy as rocks, and he ached. He was so shattered he couldn’t move. His head hurt, especially on the top, and he couldn’t think very clearly. It was as if he had been running or swimming all night whilst doing lots of very tricky sums all at the same time.
He just couldn’t move, he just wanted to go back to sleep.
Eventually he managed to climb out of the snow and walk slowly with the egg still balanced on his feet, slowly making his way back to the nesting ground.
He felt so weary, so drained, exhausted, which was odd as he hadn’t actually done anything, yet thoughts and ideas were raging through his mind. He just needed sleep, but he needed to get back, and he shuffled slowly, head down, back to the nesting area on his own.
When he finally arrived back, he looked up. Someone had stolen his patch.
He recognised the intruder straight away. Dave had had problems with this one before. It was a stupid, selfish penguin, who was full of himself. He wasn’t as big or strong or as good looking as Dave but he was a few years younger, and he had a mean sneer.
Dave didn’t know his name, and he didn’t care, he wasn’t one of his mates. His name probably wasn’t ‘Dave’ either, he didn’t like him, and his name was probably something stupid anyway.
He felt the programming change in his body, new programming was instinctively coming in, starting up functions like adrenaline, angry face, bodily inflation, and fight or flight – which in Dave’s case left only one option. His personality was changing - he could feel it - just as a dogs did when they had a raw bone; things kicked in and hypnotised him to be in a different state; something else.
Dave was tired though, far too exhausted to put up a fight. The other penguin eyed him up as Dave waddled up, and then gave him that indignant ‘I don’t know what you mean - this isn’t yours’ look, then a ‘What are you going on about?’ look, followed by the aggressive ‘What are you going to do about it anyway?’ one.
But Dave didn’t have the energy to fight for what was his, he was shattered and even the act of resistance and the adrenaline rush has exhausted him to his bones.
Sometimes life could be so unfair, it was direct injustice after all he had done - but then that was the way it was, he could not fight, not today anyway, but then tomorrow was another day and he would have all his energy and strength back.
His dropped his head down to the ground and turned away. Poor Dave.
He looked around at all his penguin mates, but they all seemed to be back to normal, acting as if nothing had happened, like the storm had never occurred, as if everything was just the same as it always had been. It was as if all the programs had just restarted again from where they had left off the day before the storm, just the same as if nothing had happened. Nobody seemed to care about him or what had gone on.
Dave imagined it would be just the same in a thousand years’ time, or ten thousand; nothing changing, day after day. He thought about trying to explain what he had done or what had happened to them, but he knew it was pointless.
The only thing that seemed to have changed was that he was exhausted. And he had lost his patch. They all seemed to just get on with things, and behaved as if nothing had happened, like it had all been a dream. Everything was as it had been before, and if anything they were just ignoring Dave altogether, with a ‘what are you on about attitude?’
Life was so unfair. Why did he bother, and what was the point of it all?
He walked off slowly with the egg on his feet to the far edge of the group, past lots of other penguins that eyed him suspiciously and defensively as he went.
Finally he reached the lesser priority nesting patches, where he just stood alone; cold and tired and weak.
He stood for a long while thinking.
If everyone were all programs thought Dave, what difference does it make, all of this, and does it matter anyway?
Somehow Dave thought that it did, he thought it must do for some reason. He tried to get some sleep, to rest, to get his energy back up again.
No one would ever know it was Dave that had done this, and so nobody would thank him, or even show any sign of being grateful, so what was the point?
He may as well just behave like everyone else, look after ‘Number One’. The only consolation or reward was that he was alive, along with everyone else.
At the time it just seemed the right thing to do. He just saw what had to be done, answered the questions, and did what he thought was right, as would anyone. That didn’t make him feel any better though. Now that he was suffering and being badly treated and ignored that didn’t seem right or fair.
Several hours later all the girls arrived back. They had sensed something had occurred, and that they needed to get back for some reason. They all arrived in waves, and the greetings came in noisy calls and beak waving.
As Dave looked up the slope to the middle of the colony he could see that the penguin that had taken Dave’s patch in the middle was being greeted by several interested single attractive girl penguins, and he was now raising his beak and puffing out his chest as if he were top penguin, trying every p-p-pick-up trick going.
Dave liked him even less now, and tried to work out what his name could be, and he managed to come up with several suitable ideas. Dave looked away.
It was late evening now, almost dark. The wind dropped to a light breeze, and the remaining clouds cleared.
The coloured swirling lights in the South sky came through, illuminating all the penguins in different colours, and the ground around them, with vibrant flashing reds, greens, and blues.
Dave turned to the North, and saw in the distance a female penguin coming towards him along the ice on her own.
In this light she looked blue, a sort of pale sapphire or turquoise aquamarine colour surrounded her. He had seen some stones that colour on a beach somewhere.
It was difficult to see in the fading light but that’s what it looked like, like she was glowing blue.
His wife came up to him and greeted him calmly with a knowing smile on her face as if she understood everything that had gone on, everything that had happened, everything that he had done.
Which of course Dave knew was impossible. But she could tell something was not quite right with him so she just cuddled up to him, and rested her head over his shoulder.
She didn’t say anything, and neither did Dave. But he was happy. He felt warm inside now, and stronger every minute.
He hugged his wife and tears began to roll down his cheeks. He wasn’t sure why he was crying, he didn’t know what it was for.
Was it relief, sadness, happiness? He didn’t know, he just had tears; it was something he had no control over, or something he had ever experienced before, they just flowed out and landed on the yielding snow.
But there were still these bigger problems in his mind, still there. What could he possibly do?
He was just a simple penguin, what could he do to save everyone, what possible difference could he make to it all?
He just stood there and hugged his wife again, and she closed her eyes, the egg safely held on his feet between them gave a slight tapping noise.
The thoughts and worries he had disappeared, it was all OK again, nothing else mattered, he closed his eyes too and everything was as it should be.
The camera pulled back from looking down on the two penguins. It zoomed out away from the white glacial plateau domain.
As it panned out, the large colony was now just a small dark smudge on the edge of the icepack which was breaking up slowly into pieces and floating off.
It zoomed back further to show the continent and the iceberg filled seas around it, back, and back, and ba
ck, until it took in the whole World from outer space.
It was just a simple blue-green disc with cities, countries, seas, aircraft, clouds, ocean liners, and storms.
From here, everything was much bigger, much more complicated, sophisticated, and difficult.
Yet when you looked at it from here it was also just as simple as an isolated colony of penguins on a remote glacial ice sheet.
Dave’s world, his life, his environment, were simple, uncomplicated, isolated, straightforward and well defined on this icy plateau.
Yet it formed just a single piece of a vast complex puzzle that was our world. He had no thoughts of the sphere he was on, its vast organisations, structures, or knowledge that had formed into protected academic shapes.
Dave The Penguin Page 3