Dave The Penguin (4 page)

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 back, until it took in th
e
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.

He had no understanding
of words like zeitgeist, macro-organism, or collective
consciousness, or even how to construct a programme
on how it all should evolve into an integrated
self-aware form.

No, all that would have been
far too much for Dave to cope with, yet the underlying nature and
ideas required were surprisingly very simple.

It was just all common
sense stuff really, things which Dave was very good at, things that
just needed bravery and faith to come into play for
himself
, and everyone.

So in response to Dave’s
question - on what difference could he make to it all….

T
he answer was, surprisingly, quite a lot,

and on a scale he
couldn’t possibly imagine!

Dave was a penguin on the
edge.

His wife had told him he
looked stressed and worried. She was concerned about how tired and
weary he was after the storm had passed, and all he had been
through.

With all the issues with his
patch having to be retaken and keeping off rivals it had taken its
toll on him. She had said it had all made him irritable and a bit
short with her too, but he was fairly sure he was still the same
height as he had always been.