Hi.

No, you’re not disturbing me at all. I always have time for you. In fact, I’m glad to hear from you… it seems to be kind of rare these days. I know you’re busy. I keep pretty busy myself, as you might guess. I’m happy whenever you take time out to talk with me… I’m here for you.

I’ve just been working on some furniture. It was a cabinet I once saw Norm Abrams making on the Old Yankee Workshop show. Surprised? Why? I worked in carpentry for years while I was living among you all. It was good, honest work.

I came there, in what would now be jeans, a t-shirt, and boots, to see how it was for you to live in the working class. I am not into the flashy, royal, silver-spoon-and-limousine treatment. That’s garish.

If I were to sit down on the steps of a big, shiny televangelist’s church altar “set,” during a live broadcast, would you let me stay? Would you listen to me, or would you have burly deacons escort me out before I could share with you?

I would say that the trappings don’t matter… and if you want to know the simplest way to follow the Way, it’s this:

1. Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

2. Be excellent to each other.

Yes, Bill S. Preston, Esquire and Ted “Theodore” Logan consolidated “Love your neighbor as you love yourself” into the real essence of what I meant.

One of the greatest followers of the Way, who never called himself Christian, was Mohandas Gandhi. He really got it. Check him out as an example of how to do this gift of life you’ve received.

You know, while I’m thinking of it, I did want to say something about you calling my name, or Dad’s, as an exclamation. We’re both looking forward to hearing from you, and when you use our names to express anger, but don’t ask us to help you with your frustration, it’s pretty disappointing.

Think of someone shouting your name out, like they need you to rush to their aid, and then they bat you away as soon as you respond. Frustrating.

And speaking in that way, please stop being haughty, smug, and sanctimonious. No one likes that… least of all me. I want you all to enjoy life harmoniously. I don’t ask everyone to believe in me, but I do ask my believers to be as considerate to everyone else as they expect to be considered.

I do forgive you when you ask it of me. But please don’t take my concept in vain. Those who cause great wars against your fellow travelers, for oil or strategic military placement against other nations– nations with a hard-core underground of dear friends who call themselves Christians also– and do so in my name– aren’t following the Way. This goes for your cousins, too, who call out to Mohammed as their prophet.

I weep.

He stood against the brick, outer wall of the walk-in clinic, wearing fake Oakley sunglasses and a sporty polo shirt tucked into bright red basketball shorts. The accompanying red and white sneakers completed his “am I an assistant high school basketball coach?” wardrobe. His beginner’s beer belly confirmed this as he rubbed his goatee with concern.

“It’s just crazy.” He paced around with the monologue apparently continuing inside his head for the moment.

“Yeah, but the TV news and internet make it seem that way. Weather’s always been unpredictable,” said the woman behind me.

The others in line chimed in now — nodding their sentiments as we all waited for the clinic to open.

He started up again.

“I’ve been an administrator at a Christian school for over five years. We ain’t never seen nothin’ like this. Flooding everywhere. People just tryin’ to get out.”

The line compacted and shuffled closer to the sliding doors. A nurse stood just in sight, dutifully unlocking as the clock struck 1:00.

First in line, I received my new patient paperwork and settled into a waiting room chair. It was quick, repetitive work and I handed it back two minutes later. By then, it seemed I was third on the list. My chest pains were not deemed as crucial as the looming, sweating obesity of those around me. Gads, they could have croaked at any moment.

“Mr. Koop, what seems to be the trouble?”

“Chest pain.”

“I see. Now, is it stabbing, throbbing, or pressure?”

“Feels like someone is sitting on my chest. Sometimes, at night, it…”

“I see. Good. Now let’s get that shirt off. We’ll fix you up for an EKG.”

“It gets worse when I try to sleep. Also, I’ve been stressed. Do you think…”

“Just lay down right here and…”

I removed my shirt quickly and climbed carefully onto the sanitary paper patient pad. She began lubing me up for the suction cups.

“When I breathe in it feels like…”

“Now, we’ve reached the portion of the test where you shouldn’t talk. What’s the name of your insurance company?”

“Anthem. One time the doctor told me…”

“Please, don’t speak. The test.”

She pointed to the electrodes on my chest. A minute later she removed them and said,”You can put your shirt back on — the doctor will be with you shortly.”

True enough, she was in shortly. If nothing else, this care was prompt. I rambled through my disjointed list of symptoms and she stared at me somewhat sympathetically–the look you might give a dog struggling with a cone around its neck.

“Pleurisy. Take two Aleve, twice a day. Unless you want a prescription for something stronger.”

“Aleve works for me. Can I still drink coffee. Run?”

“I don’t see why not. Just take it easy.”

She left the room quickly, scrawling onto her medical clipboard all the while. I poked my head into her tiny office.

“So I can…”

“Yeah, you can just go. No need to check out.”

I breathed a little easier as I headed for the door. Alas, it was locked and I stood befuddled.

“Mr. Koop?” called the Nurse Ratched clone at the front desk. “I’m going to need your co-pay.”

Thirty-five dollars later I felt some measure of relief. Not dying today…I thought.

I sifted through the remains of the decimated Sunday paper.  The headlines were mostly negative, as expected.  There seemed to be a common theme uniting them, though:  Man-hating was hot.  For some reason, pundits couldn’t understand that I find Hillary Clinton disingenuous; apparently the fact that she’s a woman was more important in their eyes.  Same thing with Sex and the City.  Just disliking the movie apparently was a sign of blatant sexism.

Even seemingly gender-neutral news like oil prices were laced with anti-white male rhetoric: “It’s just the man profiting off us,” one young student lamented.  I immediately felt burdened with years of other people’s shortcomings.  This must be what a heart attack is like.  Good thing I’m not so old yet.

Perturbed and a little sweaty, I threw the pile of paper into the garbage.  “At least I know how I really feel,” I consoled myself as I ate some granola.  I thought about turning on the television, but decided that the media gods were probably conspiring against me and opted for my iPod instead.  Unfortunately, Steve Jobs and company must have thought my misery funny as Alanis Morissette came on to remind me that she’d go down on me in a theater.  I quickly skipped to the next song.  Jim James’ wail always soothes my nerves, and all was right for a few bites as I finished breakfast.

I thought about taking a walk around the lake, and eventually settled on that as a decent plan of action.  There’s usually a nice breeze coming off of the water and the sun was shining.  What could go wrong?  Plenty, it seemed.  Just being alive was enough to offend many by the water.  I could feel the glares from old and young alike as I ambled along the shoreline, their well-shaped eyebrows forming a sea of scowls.

Maybe I’ll just go home.  Naps are always nice on a Sunday.  I’ll just have to gamble that my subconscious won’t work against me as well.

Bill nodded his head slowly, looking down with solemn concentration. Blue and red chips were spread across his Disabled Veteran’s Lodge Super Bingo Board. He laid down a red piece and turned his eyes to Darryl.

“I used to sit around after school and watch tv — man… those commercials with the big jets. Respect. I just knew I’d be coming back with a medal and a girl on each arm. Great job, big house.”

Bill continued nodding as he scrutinized his chips carefully. His cane rested at his side — leaning against the heavily worn, eight foot wooden table in front of them.

“But, look. My leg is gone — shrapnel torn to hell. Can’t get no job. All I get is lip. Thank you, brave servicemen and women. Ultimate sacrifices. Yeah, how ’bout thanking us with some body armor — maybe some benefits. I can still see Sgt. Tua’s blood everywhere. It don’t wash out.”

“BINGO!” Bill stood slowly, holding his winning card in hand. The excitement caused a tremor in his hand. “FREE dinner,” he mumbled excitedly.

He gently lowered back into his seat with one hand placed on his lower back for support. He turned his full attention to Darryl now — taking off his large bifocals and cracking his long, wrinkled fingers.

“They’ll burn for this,” he said. “Big oil cowboys.” He sighed and a pained look crossed his time weathered face. Reaching instinctively for a cigarette, he found nothing in his shirt pocket.

“We had reasons. It was a damn mess, but I like to think we did some good. More than bad anyhow. This endless… what we’ve got now… Greed. How’d they rope you in, young man?”

“No place to be. Minimum wage or the Army. Dad said get out, Son. Be a man. You know what? He cries when he sees me. I cry too. Some men we are. I tell you, Pops. I got a whole squad of boys still over there. Only family I got. What am I gonna do here?”

“You’d think the ol’ “maverick” would care about us. Sure says he does. Says we should be thrilled about a gas tax holiday when every day is tax free day for fat cat oil execs and politicians.”

“Yeah, he’ll say whatever whomever whenever to get in. After that it’ll be the same ol’ bull.”

A warm faced old woman in a bright red sweater and polka dotted slacks approached the two men.

“Your prize, Bill.” She eyed him maternally and handed over a coupon covered in bright corporate logos. REDEEMABLE AT THE FOLLOWING PARTICIPATING RESTAURANTS, ” it said.

“Wanna get outta here? Get a hot meal?”

“No know it, Pops.”

They limped slowly for the door. Bill stopped to take a breath, then spoke.

“You know, Nixon was a “maverick” too. But, not even he voted to ok water torture.”

Look at nature: there are no contentious factions in an ant colony or segregated groups of salmon.  Ever met a racist leopard?

Diversity is cause for celebration, not fuel for divisive conflict.

How can people contend with an uncertain future when they are so firmly rooted in the past?

Striving to reach an unseen finish line.

Drenched with effort, drained, aching,

I race ahead, the beat of my heart reassuring me I am almost there-

I will be happy soon.

Running, I am full of cold, consuming hatred,

Bleeding sweat and bitter tears of impotent rage,

Knowing I am disappearing, paying the highest price

For a crown of vapor.

I can see the crown in my mind,

Elusive, evanescent, imaginary,

A vision of sweet cool rest from the seething anger,

The hot desperate fury at my powerlessness

To sate my thirst for vicious revenge

To make someone pay for this unfathomably deep well of haunting pain.

I pound my feet on the hard uneven path of time

As I fruitlessly seek absolution for my humanity,

Each step a prayer bead on the path

To forgiveness for my fallibility, for my inability to forget though I try so desperately-

I am a prisoner, tortured by my cruel taunting memory.

I run with every fiber of my being,

Looking forward, daring not to look back or to stop even briefly

Because to stop would mean to hear the small sorrowful cry of the soul

Wanting to return to how it used to be-

Needing, wanting, crying to be freed

To stop running vainly on the treadmill of moments

Captive to doubt

Living in place

Chasing the lost wind.

By denying myself a moment of opportunity to step down and stop fighting,

I allow my existence to be defined only

By non-existent destinations.

Except render me powerless with unspent range,

Unable to shed the blood I would risk all to see run?

Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. Oh yeah?

So DO something, damn it-

Or let my own hand deal the destructive blow,

Let me feel in my blood the unchained rush of satisfying

Fury finally allowed to vent.

What I would give to see that beautiful innocent mask

Worn by the cold void monster’s soul

Sliced in two by the knife I wield.

But all I can do is imagine.

Words are just an angry symptom,

A caged life transformed by fruitless hatred

Into a soul just as empty as Its.

And then I dreamed.

I was walking through the hallway at Giuseppe High (a Red-Ribbon School of Awesomeness), or somewhere– maybe it was actually IU, because at this point, that would make more sense. But I knew my way around. It was after religion fourth period, and I was really having trouble remembering my schedule for a minute, but I had it figured out. But I had ended the period without having fallen asleep once, so I was pretty proud of myself.

I saw Julie and was talking to her in the hall. There was this weirdo ramp thing, too, and it had little dents cut into it like it was supposed to look like really gradually-sloped stairs, but it wasn’t. I was joking, and I swear in my head it was funny, and I said, “Don’t climb up those stairs, Julie.” I don’t know. They were silly stairs. She never heard me, though, because we were separated in the crowd. I was walking up the stairs and I got more and more lost as I got off on different levels that looked nothing like Giuseppe High. I didn’t know where the heck I was going.

Mr. Sagely-Mozart or somebody came over the intercom guy and said something about a drill like yesterday’s, which made sense in my head because I had a weirdo vague memory of being evacuated the day before. I wasn’t concerned with that, though, because I was pretty sure I was in the part of the building where you didn’t have to evacuate, because it was like a Media Center, only I think this part was my own mental depiction of some obscure branch of IU. Anyway, I saw some random faces that I recognized, like Brandon Peculiar and Angelina Foaler– Angelina, if you read this, I don’t get it either…. I don’t remember whether I’ve ever spoken to you before. And I’m not trying to be unfriendly, I swear; I just get weird and uncomfortable around people I don’t know well, especially when the ratio of people I know to people I don’t know isn’t in my favor.

Mrs. Kilometers would “D” me for sure if she read that ridiculous run-on/fragment.

I also saw Mr. Nieleggings, and after a short period of messing absentmindedly around on a computer, I became concerned. What were we all doing here, and where were we? I couldn’t be on Channel Nine, because I don’t have Channel Nine, and neither does Brandon. And if I was at school and I had just finished fourth period, didn’t that mean I was late for class? So I approached Mr. Nieleggings.

“Do you, by any chance, know where Mrs. Kilometers is?” I was irritated with the weakness of my voice, but I needed to know, because if I was late to fifth period with Mrs. Kilometers, I would be in detention doing her filing work.

“Now, why would I know where Mrs. Kilometers is?” Mr. Nieleggings asked, and I couldn’t say, “Because you talk to her, like… every day,” now, could I? So I just shrugged and tried to explain the situation, getting all the while increasingly frantic. I’m pretty sure I was starting to cry from the combined stress of not knowing what was going on and having to talk to an authority figure by myself.

“I think you should bring me a bag of candy,” said Mr. Nieleggings. I guess he said that because he thought I was being annoying, and evidently he does have people bring in candy for such things. I am slightly ashamed of myself for dreaming of him saying that, because I don’t honestly think he would withhold information from me when I was in such a state, just to ensure a bag of candy for himself first.

I told him I’d bring him candy; of course I would. So he sent me on my way with my information, which I don’t think my imagination actually drudged up for me. I don’t really remember much more of that dream, except for I think Angelina said something that alarmed me, and I wondered, “How does she know that?” about whatever it was, and then I remembered that I’d told her the night before when we all went to see School House Rock, as performed by Kathy Olga’s middle school. Obviously, I didn’t actually see her there, as the only high school students I can recall seeing were myself, Brian Twinnish, and Joe Plasterings, whose father is the principal.

Then, the dream took me home. Everything was just perfectly normal, until I looked out the window in the dining room (or whatever you want to call it to the pool area. Then, I saw this gigantoid squid-looking thing that was some sort of space ship fairly bouncing through the air toward our house, and its legs/appendages were kicking the air like it could swim through it. I called my mom over and explained. Then I heard/felt it land on our roof.

After that, it took off and I saw it fly into the distance, and I wondered, “Is that it?”, but it wasn’t. It came back and crawled all over the fence, like something reminiscent of the movie Eight Legged Freaks, but more fluid, I think. Not that I’ve seen that movie. I have, however, seen previews.

The next time I looked out, there were gigantic tigers climbing one of the trees outside the fence. There were a whole bunch of other huge animals out there, too. I was convinced that they were going to take me away with them, because they were some form of extraterrestrial life. I had even convinced myself that every person who ever wrote a fantasy or sci-fi book got their ideas from actually being abducted by aliens/seeing actual talking tigers. Oh yeah– I think this one could talk. I just had a feeling.

Naturally, I was very concerned by the whole thing. There was also a ginormous tower– an electricity tower of some kind, I think– set up outside the fence on my far left. My mom was unconcerned. She was in a baking frenzy. There were two pans of chocolate brownies on the table, evidently having mostly been eaten; some of the sides had been cut off, like she didn’t want to eat them, but I know she likes the corners and sides most…. They were also very cake-like, which I thought was odd. It was like she put cakes in brownie pans. I dunno. She was making vanilla-flavored ones, too, which I’m pretty sure she never does unless we’re having company that really likes vanilla better than chocolate.

I tested one of the vanilla ones and found that she had put corn in them, because she’d “run out of chocolate chips.” I went with it and tried not to cringe while I finished eating it.

I kept remembering the animals and potential alien lifeforms in the pool area and making my mom look out the window. She kept not really caring. Her only concern seemed to be that the tower thing might mess with our electricity. It irritated me, so I went and hid out in my bedroom and fell asleep. Then I woke up and came out and had to ask if that had been a dream, because it was sure weird enough to be one, and she said it wasn’t.

At some point, I actually did wake up, and experience a moment of deja vu as I stumbled out of my bedroom and mumbled to my mom, who was doing laundry, that I had just had the weirdest dream. Then, I experienced deja vu again when she was entirely un-phased by the entire thing.

And now, we have caught up with the present.

But, 2008 has been different. Soundbyte hungry media locusts viciously rampaged unabated — threats by television, radio, and yes…the world wide web.

This May, our collective blood boiled for change. We threw down our frisbees and flip-flops. Our ice cream cones melted in the streets to the sound of a third chin foreshadowing in the wind. The Tower of Limbaugh called out: “Cross the picket fence.” These ominous tones struck a chord in all surrounding Limburgs. Shotguns cocked, amens exclaimed, and our fate was sealed.

It’s almost June and we feel dirty. No amount of showering seems to tame the foul odor of status quo. Though FOX is not clever it’s still in my hair. ABC’s waste lies like a brick in my stomach. CNN has blackened my lungs and ruptured my ears.

My flip-flops are back, but I’m Dennis Kucinistench. What about the war? What of education? Tiny and ineffective, I’m just freshening up. Where is Spring and what went wrong?

She wondered how this could have happened, imagining his chewed insides churning in the bellies of the beasts below. He had been a large man with so much flesh. Looking out across the vast lake, she imagined his blood spreading out through the water. He was a part of the lake now; a part of this sulfur smelling ecosystem. His friends, these boys in men’s clothing, had their share of the blame. Her memories of drunken speed boating flooded back and she closed her tearing eyes. Not that anyone could stop John from being John. His legendary wild streak was well documented through bi-annual trips to the emergency room and high life insurance premiums. But, this was all so sudden. They looked like freshmen at the prom now, she thought. And rightly so—their shroud of invincibility, a sacred brotherhood, had been devoured as they stood, groping and helpless. Screaming, they had said, and then gone. The imagined, strobe-like reenactment repeated involuntarily before her mind’s eye. She felt each of their hands reassuringly grip her shoulders and released were the deep sobs she had held at bay.

Don’t make it so
yo’ shrouded in know

Tho’ Iraq is Iraq
It’s better than Nam

Mainly, please no
McCain

Lord knows he’s
on that bus

Trusting in god,
guns, burning that oil

Nixon on steroids
McCain Mark IV

The distinct aroma of greasy McDonald’s wrappers, the surround smell of styrofoam enriched coffee, and bladders on the turbulent brink.

Putter-purring engine, strip club billboards shouting, ‘FREE SHOWERS FOR TRUCKERS’, and silence.

We make scheduled stops. We make unscheduled stops. Parking in the hotel garage, like gas, food, and mental stability, will be reimbursed at a later date. Sally keeps her receipts in a special ziplock deeply hidden within the folds of her enormous handbag/purse. Frank jams his into a zippered compartment in his slacks. He also eats Cheetos for lunch and tucks the aforementioned slacks into his bizcas loafers.

Things you can count on: Frank’s sloppy lethargy, Sally’s 2003 autographed Purpose Driven Life Trapper Keeper, and my tendency to mix deep…into the crowd and drinks at the mini-bar. Yes, we’re all on auto-pilot: defense-mode. The schedule leaves nothing to chance or creativity. In fact, if a conference planner sees a creative being stabbed to death with an ink pen, they run for a paper towel and stain remover.

But, that is neither here nor there. Where are we? In a “session.” It looks like the University of Jimstragglee-Bowmanton has flown in a professor to talk about their research grant. Mainly, he is scratching his head, dictating monotone, and fiddling with his laser pointer. Eye candy, unbuttoned graduate students are passing out PowerPoint slide outlines. Yes, we listen to the slides being read, watch them on the projector, and read them on our heavily bound print-outs. These things last 30 or 45 minutes a piece and I don’t wear a watch. Shades of high school. I can’t bear to watch.

Did I mention this is a “Conference on Higher Learning”? In Higher Learning we’re obsessed with technology. Dear reader, I sense perspiration. Never fear. We aren’t doing anything to change your beloved status quo with this technology. No, we’re merely purchasing it at an alarming rate to compensate for the speed of innovation and the simultaneous stagnation of bureaucracy. It’s simple really. Buy an attractively packaged piece of software. Wait about a year and buy more expensive software to bypass the need to understand the last round. And the cycle is in motion. Hire the young, burn them, buy new software.

Ah, glad you’re up to speed. Come along, it’s time to take a look at swag. I’m lucky and I’ll be manning our booth today. Feel free to pick up a copy of our team’s weighty PowerPoint print-outs. And here’s a free pen in a plastic bag. Did you see it has our logo on it? High five! Thanks for stopping by. Be sure to stop at the other 40 tables. You’ll notice it’s a bit like a science fair in here. Pssst. I heard they have free mousepads over at table 26. First come, first serve!

Around six, we’ll be be dining in the hotel’s high-priced restaurant where Ponderosa meets Olive Garden. Meet me around seven down at the bar. We’ll talk about nothing but work. Nothing strenuous — just killing off the corrupted brain cells, the ones to weak too carry on in this line of work. The good news is you’ll drop like a stone when you hit that hotel bed. No dreams, tossing, or turning, just the sound of the 5am alarm. You, yawning, and getting ready to do it again.

The man cradles his little boy in his arms.
Looks at the boy’s long lashes that shield eyes of a gas-flame blue that match his own.
Bartholomew.
Looks out the window at the night sky, lost in thought.
Lost.
Stroking the child’s blond wisps tenderly,
He wanders to parallel worlds,
To a place where he is, where Anne is.
There, it rains and they don’t get wet.

They laugh with delight at this, turning, turning together
With arms outstretched, faces to the sky.
Thunder.
Sighing back to the world of permeable auras,
He looks out the window at the sheet lightning.
The wilting sunflowers in the vase on the nightstand flutter,
Caressed by the breath of a wind whose source is not here.
The pattern of the vase makes him smile, a gentle, sad smile.
A gift, from Barty’s buddy’s mother,
It is decorated with paintings of pennies in motion.

Flipping, arcing through the air, vanishing.

At four years old, Barty had discovered the other places he could be.
He’d learned how to send the pennies from his tiny fingers
To other worlds, violating every law of the universe we know.
The man held one little warm palm in his right hand, and wanted never to let go.
Let go.
Sir, let the boy go.
It is time. I’m sorry.
The doctor gently took Bartholomew from his father’s arms.
Go home, sir. There is nothing left to be done.
Only a cursory autopsy, since we know the cause of death. The funeral home will be contacting you soon.
I am sorry.
He suddenly finds himself outside of the hospital, standing in the thunderstorm.
He turns his face to the sky,
Closes his eyes.
Fire surges through his soul, emanating from the warmth in his hand.
His right hand.
Filled with a fierce joy, he looks down at the small palm that is nestled there.
Daddy, Barty says.
We’re dry.
Dry.
Rain falls in torrents around them, haunting them. Gales of wind gust powerfully,
Encircling them, spiraling,
Yet they remain untouched, with not a hair blown out of place.
Yes, son, the man says, kneeling and embracing his child. We are dry.
But this is not quite true,
Because in this place of marvel where he is and Barty is too,
Tears, he finds, can leave the face quite damp.

I slowly and involuntarily made to get out of bed. The big problem was, I wasn’t lying on a bed. I opened my eyes and saw…sky? ‘That can’t be right,’ I decided. I looked around me for an explanation, and what I saw shocked me. ‘Penguins?’ I inquired. I looked down and saw webbed feet…not exactly a great thing when concerning a human being.

When I decided to get up, I realized that I didn’t know how. Trying to roll over, I got strange looks from the penguins and a nice, cold (not to mention unexpected) swim in the ocean. When I got out of the water, I waddled over to the other penguins.

Getting a closer look a them, many bore strong resemblance to my classmates. It was an odd notion, but true. I was sure that somewhere in the crowd, I even heard my friend Jennifer’s incessant laughter.

It took me a moment to find her, but when I did, somehow, there was no doubt in my mind it was she. Simultaneously, we seemed to realize how ironic this was that we had all turned into, penguins. I, for one, didn’t think it was very funny. Apparently, she did.

This should have annoyed me, because she knew perfectly well that I have been utterly terrified of penguins since I was six, and I had a nightmare about an intoxicated penguin exploding in my bedroom, but at this point, I knew Jennifer too well to care. And, anything familiar to me was very welcome. It was then that I realized just how strange and worrisome our situation was.

I cocked my head slightly to one side, hoping she would get the message that I was really confused. At my gesture, she raised her wings in a way that closely resembled a shrug.

I sighed exasperatedly and was shocked when a loud screech pierced the air instead. All the penguins turned to stare, and just as I began trying to find a nice, big hole to crawl in, to hide, so the others would stop staring, Jennifer’s constant giggling snapped me back to reality. I mentally rolled my eyes. Some things would never change, penguins or no penguins.

Two hours later, Jennifer and I were standing together, having a staring contest, because there really wasn’t much else to do. We were all getting a bit hungry by now, because it was seven-thirty, and no one had eaten any breakfast yet. I, personally, would rather starve than eat raw fish! ‘But then again,’ I thought, ‘maybe this would be the perfect time to try it.’

After I won fourteen staring contests in a row, and Jennifer won all the breath-holding contests, we were starting to become comatose. I suggested that we go for a walk to look for food (still using signals). ‘We’re going to get really good at this eventually,’ I thought.

We had been walking for about a half an hour without coming across anything interesting, when I saw a giant bird with a four-foot wingspan, flying straight for us. It was then that I remembered what I had read about penguins earlier this year, and it was nothing good. I was almost positive that this bird was a skua. A skua is a bird that hunts small penguins. This was very bad.

I nudged Jennifer (who hadn’t yet noticed anyting) with my wing, and turned to look at the skua. She obviously understood because the next second, both of us were waddling as fast as our short legs would take us toward the ocean.

When we got there, we dove in, and didn’t come up for a good forty-five seconds. ‘Good thing we had those breath-holding contests,’ I thought to myself. Immediately after we came to the water’s surface, we checked the air for any sign of the skua. When we didn’t see any, my penguin instincts finally got the better of me, and I dove back into the water, grabbing a mouthful of fish.

This relief only lasted about thirty seconds, though, because as I swimming, I saw another natural predator, a seal. I threw Jennifer a panicked look I knew she wouldn’t miss, and swam quickly back to shore, where we both collapsed from exhaustion after our narrow escapes.

The next morning, I awoke to find myself back in my bed, a human being again, and smiling. ‘Another penguin peril.’

not to this point

but to this place

she sat across from us

two scared men

asking those questions diligently

ticking them off one by one

i sat beside you

taking in your breath

equally proud and hesitant

are you?

did you?

have you?

how long?

Liquorpillscocainepotxtobacco?

finally

asked who i am to you

and you said “family”

s’funny how significant a blank space can become when it is filled.