Dave The Penguin (5 page)

His friends had told him he
that he really needed to ‘Chill out’, and then sniggered. “Mate,”
they said “you need to stay cool” and then fell about laughing. But
he didn’t think it was very bloody funny.

He had tried to explain to his
wife what had happened, and what he had done, but he didn’t have
the words, and she either wasn’t interested or didn’t
understand.

Somehow though she seemed to
believe him, and know, but she still wasn’t impressed or willing to
acknowledge or talk about it for some reason. She seemed to know
what he had done, and what he was, and what had happened, but in a
different way. However, she was more interested in day to day
things, getting on with things.

It is very
odd
, thought Dave, but he let it
go.

A few days later he was
still no better, so she had told him to go off and think about
things, take a bit of time to find himself, and she took over the
job of looking after the egg while he went off…. Far
off.

So now he stood on his own way
out on the glacier and shuffled a little closer to the edge, and
peered over the ice cliff where a large section of it had broken
off in the recent storm. Where he was now standing had all
originally sloped gently down to the sea, but now all that was left
was a cliff, a steep drop and the sea at the bottom, and no way of
getting to it safely without a long walk around.

You just had to accept it,
these environmental things, treat them as ‘part of life’, and work
around them. Move on, and come to terms with the change. Being this
close to the edge, and one step away or one icefall from certain
death, certainly put things into perspective though; made things
clearer as to what was important, and what was not.

It brought into sharp focus
what life really meant, what it was all about, and why he thought
the way he did.

Dave wasn’t complaining though
- unlike the ice beneath his feet, which was now making ominous
groaning and creaking sounds. Which was odd, as he didn’t think
that his light frame would make any difference.

Dave had just come to look at
the view and to explore, not to fish this time. He had brought his
new tape player and headphones that his wife had given him for his
birthday, to give him something to listen to, to keep him busy
while she had been away.

He was currently
listening to
Heaven Can
Wait
by Meatloaf. He liked that song, it
was as if the lyrics were written for him,
but then you could say that about most
songs
he
thought, and it would probably apply to most penguins, and they
probably all felt the same way too.

He liked listening and thinking
and watching far away things.

When the tape finished he
looked through his bag for some other tapes he had found washed up
on the beach that morning. One caught his eye - it read…

‘
Meditation
for Self Help – Extreme (under the counter
version)
’

Dave didn’t think he
needed any help, he felt fine, relaxed and very calm. He looked at
the back of the tape; it read ..

‘
If you are
on the edge – you can use this tape to learn to access all the
levels of your mind, and unleash the powers within you for greater
understanding, a better more relaxed calmer you, and a better
happier world
’.

He thought it was odd that a
tape knew where he was, what he was doing, and what he had to do.
But then life was full of surprises, and with Dave, things seemed
to arrive at the right time, and be there when they had to, and say
what they needed to say.

He was sure his wife said the
same about him.

Dave was a bit sceptical about
these sort of self-help spiritual things; he only believed in what
he could see, touch, and hear or smell. He was the sort of penguin
that liked to call a spade a spade, if he had one, which of course
he didn’t.

Just in the same way that he
wasn’t having a mid-life crisis, because if he was he would admit
it, obviously.

He had tried to use a
meditation tape that he had borrowed from a friend about a year
ago, but it hadn’t worked very well. He remembered the start of it
telling him to close his eyes and relax, let his mind wander, and
then suddenly it shouted at him rudely

“…
FIVE!! – NOW
WIDE
AWAKE - FEELING FINE….” which
startled him badly.

He had a whole hour of his life
missing somewhere, a sore throat, he was dribbling from his beak,
and there were suddenly lots of other penguins looking at him and
laughing as the tape clicked off.

This time it would be
different, he was on his own now, and he looked around
carefully.

Dave was more of a doing sort
of penguin, and when he wasn’t doing things he liked to contemplate
stuff if he had any spare time, work things out, rather than just
meditating or tuning in to whatever was going on ‘out there’.
However at the moment he was so stressed he was willing to give
anything a go.

He started the tape, and the
calming relaxing music started to flow into his ears through the
headphones, together with a deep mellow echoed voice telling him to
find a good quiet place to relax and to lie down somewhere where he
would be alone and uninterrupted.

Dave looked at the cliff
edge, the ice falling into the sea, and stopped the tape and looked
around. ‘
mmmm,
T
ricky’
he thought.

Half an hour later Dave settled
himself back against the rocky slope just up from the beach in the
most comfortable part of the penguin colony.

There were several young
penguins looking at him curiously, and also at the
Do Not Disturb
sign that he now had around his neck. He was also sporting
a heavily scratched pair of sunglasses that he had found on the
beach. This was to prevent him from seeing distractions.

He didn’t have a pillow, as
suggested, so he led back on the comfortable rocks and took a deep
breath and started the tape again.

The music started and the
narrator began in his polished voice; “I want you to imagine…” he
said “…that you are on a beach, with the waves in the background,
and the gentle sea breeze flowing over your body…”

This guy is
good
thought Dave. The voice then went on
to explain what was going to happen and why, what benefits he would
get, how it would help him, and how he would feel, and what he
would be capable of at the end, and how much better his life would
be.

The man was confident that
Dave, at the end, would feel even more relaxed than before he
started, which was good.

It all sounded good to Dave. He
made a quick check around by opening one eye and gave a glare to
the sniggering young penguins, who, following the look, decided to
leave him alone.

He closed his eyes and settled
down to dutifully follow the instructions.

He was then told not to drive a
car, or operate any machines – which sounded very prudent to
Dave.

The narrator went on to explain
how he would be better off financially, healthier, happier,
confident, smarter, more attractive, and get all the things he
wanted.

Dave was fairly happy with what
he had, and how he was already, he already had all these things,
but he was an open minded penguin, and always open to
possibilities, even the possibility of improving perfection.

As instructed, he continued to
imagine himself in the same place that he was already, listening to
the sounds that he was already hearing; the sea, the whales, the
wind and the seagulls - so far it was all pretty simple.

Now, Dave had a very good
imagination; he could easily create anything in his mind, as long
as it wasn’t too big for the space. Like say an elephant, he had
made that mistake once,
Oh
damn
, he thought, there it was now,
large, grey, awkward, and filling all the room in his mind
again.

Concentrate
he reminded himself.
His mind was wandering off again, and he snapped it back to the
voice on the tape.

Dave was then told to say
and repeat some statements to himself, ‘mantas’ they were called,
like hypnotic rays of hope – or something like that - he repeated
the words…..

“Every day, in every way,
things are going to be the same as yesterday and the same as the
day before that” Dave said to himself, which was what he thought he
was supposed to say.

Dave liked that. He liked
things the same, and yesterday had been good, which meant tomorrow
would be good too. ‘No changes’, that was all very ‘reassuring’, he
wiggled his rear end to settle himself down more comfortably
in-between the boulders, and then safely relaxed.

He was then told to breathe
deeply, in, and out, in and out, several times. Which he did. It
made him feel a bit giddy, a bit like brain freeze, when you had
eaten too much snow, or eaten the wrong sort of fish, so he slowed
the breaths down a bit, and that helped somewhat.

He could never work out
why he didn’t get brain freeze when the temperature dropped to
-50c, but eat even a small bit of snow and
whoosh
there it went again,
that numbing pain in the head, unable to think and cursing yourself
for being so stupid, again.

Concentrate
, he shook his head
and listened carefully, trying to not get distracted.

Dave was then asked to count
down slowly from ten to one, breathing deeply and slowly each time.
This made Dave very tense for a moment, for obvious reasons, until
the narrator started counting down for him, and he was able to let
out a sigh of relief.

He was then told to imagine
himself breathing though his skin, his pores, and imagining that he
was his own breath. That though was a little tricky for Dave; he
couldn’t imagine how the air was going to make it all the way from
his lungs though all those thick layers of rippling muscles. But he
gave it a go.

He then had to try and ‘see’
his breath; imagine and visualise his breath, which was easy,
especially as it was already -30c.

Breathing seemed to be a big
part of the tape, important, in-out, in-out, in-out stuff, which
was fine until the narrator forgot to mention that he could breathe
out at one point, and he nearly died.

He found himself gasping for
air, and opened one eye to make sure nobody had seen him, but oddly
he was quite alone now. In fact everyone seemed to be keeping a
good long safe respectful distance away from him now.

He closed his eyes again, safe
in the knowledge that he could relax again in peace. The narrator
informed him that any distractions or noises from outside wouldn’t
disturb him, in fact they would help him relax. Dave doubted this
as it seemed like a contradiction, but he decided to wait and
see.

He was told that he could
manifest anything he wanted, be anything he wanted, he just had to
think positively, train his mind, to focus on what he desired, and
his mind would ask it of the universal mind and then anything was
achievable.

This is
great
, Dave thought, because he had
always wanted to fly, it was his dream, his passion, and first on
his bucket list.

Well actually he wanted
everyone to fly, he wasn’t a selfish penguin, he wanted everyone to
be happy, and what was the point of flying if you didn’t have
anyone else to share it with.

He was then asked to imagine a
balloon on the top of his head, like a bubble that he should
inflate with all his worries and troubles and stress. With every
breath out he should fill the balloon, then let it go, and it would
fly away.

Dave tried hard, but he
couldn’t imagine it inflating at all, the balloon just stayed limp
and flopped over to one side. Dave wondered what this meant, but he
put it down to the fact that he must already be stress free.

He was then instructed to tense
and relax different parts of his body, starting from the top of his
head moving down to his feet, which, he was told, would take away
the tension and allow the muscles and tendons to relax.

He was successful with his head
and feet parts, but identifying the other described body parts
in-between was somewhat tricky, everything was a little ‘vague’
down there, and it was quite hard identifying which muscles were
where, if at all – but he did the best he could.

Tense, relax, tense, relax. It
seemed to be working, but frankly, it was absolutely
exhausting.

There were then lots of other
instructions and suggestions, with clicking of fingers, with lots
of ‘you wills’ and ‘shalls’ and ‘going tos’, followed by various
other set commands. Which of course he followed to the letter, as
suggested.

Dave was then asked to imagine
himself on top of a very tall crystal skyscraper, this skyscraper
was his mind, and he was going to explore it.

He
knew what a skyscraper was, but this was a real shock to
Dave.

Dave had always thought of his
mind as more of a small bungalow, or beach hut, with just a TV,
some magazines, a comfy sofa, and a fish freezer in it. Oh and the
large hole in one of the walls where he frequently had to chase the
elephant out.

This was impressive, a giant
building. Dave liked having a big mind; tall, see-through, up in
the clouds, higher than the annoying seagulls with stupid names,
and high above everyone else. This was amazing, and he suddenly
felt very important.

He was told that the tower held
all the levels of his mind, and he could travel to anywhere within
it, and to places outside of the tower, and to other towers.