Mr. penguin
Under the hazy white sky Mr. penguin lived in a small igloo, 2 floors 3 bedrooms hollowed of all life that it previously held no sound of stomping on stairs in the house from kids or waking up to the giggling of toddlers in the morning, over breakfast and cartoons before school. the bright colored wallpaper was a ghost of it used to be and the shadows of glow sticks and Halloween pumpkins were replaced by the stale taste of black coffee and artic news.
Every morning Mr. penguin would wake up to his cold nest, empty. His wife a nursery teacher would try not to wake him up and when he got home, she was already asleep even though he didn't work late nights. She was tired "just tired," she said.
Mr penguin worked in an open-plan office that was buzzing with life yet he had his headphones in and worked alone editing files fixing excel sheets changing fonts in icecrowsoft word for his boss who couldn't give a blue flamingo if the articles were in times new roman or ariel. He worked from 9 o'clock to 5 o'clock like every hard-working modern penguin and he got his fair share enough to pay for the igloo and his fish sticks habit. But it had been years since he started smoking and they had long since stopped making his mornings calm and his evenings enjoyable. As the soft hazel tobacco turned to grey ash so did his once dark feathers falling out more and more in the shower like the sands of time down the drain taking his vital energy and his youth with it.
When he was 5 his swim to work would be what he looked forward to the ice-cold water glistened and refreshed his eyes now those memories were relegated to the dull corners of his cobwebbed mind.
His heart didn't skip a beat anymore at the word "terrorist attacks" on the articles he would edit at work. Deaths to sharks increasing on the rise seal population rising he found his mind drifting to these things when he was swimming somewhere far home and alone almost whishing that today was the last day that he didn't want to get up in the morning and do it all again.
He used to have two little ones, but they had their little adventures now. They didn't need a dear old big bird to keep them safe or to comfort them at night as they once did for him, as eggs he would tell them stories in their shells of superheroes and magic powers of fantasy lands where penguins could fly and fish came out of the ground and flopped right in front of you whenever you were hungry ones that melted in your mouth and didn't have bones. Just stories to feed their minds and the eggs shook on those nights when he told scary stories.
He didn't know if he had it in him to ask the nurses at the care home he would be put in to read to him at night.
Recently he's been feeling he's been missing something he searches online little funko pops of the characters of his favorite shows, but the windowsill couldn't hold them all. A couple turned in to ten and a dozen more. Home DIY ice shelves and matching posters.
Mrs. penguin has been eyeing things like flowers and fires, things his bank account would sweat at the mention of, so he decided to get a second job to support his "hobby" and get Mrs. penguin what she wants.
When an opportunity to work night shifts at a sardine canning factory presented itself in a newspaper, his little tail dusted the floor in excitement, it was the first time in a long time. he didn't tell Mrs. Penguin that he would be home late and some nights so it would be a surprise. Ironically, she never asked him what he was doing on those nights, and the food when he got home itched his tiny nose.
Mr. penguin didn't like music all that much but those late-night swims in the neighborhoods under the neon buzzing made blues music like an all-encompassing wave he could ride that would take him far far away he found himself floating one night under the moonlight softly being swayed up and down.
The weightlessness and the dark reminded him of the world inside the egg only this world was frosty and the wind would bite his face when he wasn't in a crowd. there were no hushed squeaks of a story whispered just for him full of love moving the waves in warm egg, liquid bliss.
The heat of gin in his stomach couldn't hold a candle to the feeling of being in that egg. No shifts no nights and days, tomorrow and yesterday didn't exist. Capital and lower-case letters were rendered redundant his job was the ebb and flow of his creation and his paycheck was the stories he would hear every night.
Mr. Penguin wasn't very religious, but he did believe in a god he just didn't know why he was here and what he was meant to do. On those nights he tried to use the thought of god to stop him from cheating on his penguin wife. She wouldn't suffer if she didn't know, would she?
Questions always used to have an answer when he waddled with his waddle, he simply perked his beak up and raised a fluffy wing and all questions were explained and understood. Now he knew that some questions have no answer and if they shouldn't be let out into the world, they should only float in his mind.
Mr. Penguin didn't know if a cheap thrill was really what he wanted or if he wanted anything to happen at all anymore... he didn't want to feel the need to want anything.
The ice caps drifted in the ocean, a shard loosened and slipped effortlessly free like the arrow from the bow and sliced the wind sinking into the endless inky water below it coincidently the thought of the gun in the icebox at home crossed mister penguins mind.
That night Mr. Penguin was set free, Mr. Penguin learned how to fly feeling weightless as he was lowered into his penguin grave.
"Here lies mister penguin may his nest be ever warm and dreams carefree".