skit #57: one wayward penguin

There are no trees for twigs in the Antarctic wasteland, so nests are built of stones like half-stacked cairns. A pox of pebble-brimmed depressions blemishes the evenness of the rookery's skin, and over it smears a beautiful rash of black and white penguins; Here, the flock lives austerely without warmth nor flight nor color. Peeping chicks bury under the blubber of huddling mothers, protected from the furious wind and snow.

The colony needs food, so the fathers waddle off like crippled parishioners late for mass. Seven feet beneath their webbed toes swim schools of unwitting crystal krill, but the frozen sea does not break for three kilometers north of the rookery. The coastline lies north of here, but so does the Far East and the Old West and everything in between. The only thing standing south are the fishless mountains, and past that, the South Pole.

One misguided penguin totters south, south, south, through the deserted ice sheets; south, south, south, through the spires of frozen volcanic vapors; south, south, south, through the human encampments. The humans belong in Antarctica as much as they belong on the moon. The penguin will never reach the South Pole, being there no fish in those fishless mountains, and will surely expire en route. He marches with compulsory progression, like a spark along a dynamite fuse, in the only direction his forward may take him.

When one penguin parts from his flock into the seductive arms of oblivion, confusion foments. Ornithologists then doubt their understanding of migratory patterns, astronomers then doubt their understanding of geomagnetism, sociologists then doubt their understanding of animal instinct, and statisticians then doubt the accuracy of research techniques. When one wayward penguin steers astray, so do his followers.

One such detour:

From atop snow bluffs, a parka-swaddled field researcher, Märda Lundqvist, documents the penguin's unprecedented excursion and publishes a paper describing the anomaly.

From the depths of a quiet library, a tweed-jacketed behaviorist, Archibald Parlington, reads Lundqvist's work and publishes a paper describing the evolutionary advantage of curiosity.

From the apex of an ivory tower, a lily-skinned philosopher, Gregor Imov, learns reads Parlington's work and publishes a paper describing celebrity as the product of novelty.

From the southerliest point in the South Pole, a wayward penguin reads the Imov's paper and rediscovers purpose in his inane pursuit. He spins at the South Pole like a magnetic needle, shanghaiing all of his followers onto his illogical carousel.