Dave The Penguin

Self Help Dave

Self Help Dave

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.

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 ..