“Rock, paper scissors. Rock, paper scissors. Rock, paper scissors. Rock, paper scissors. Shit.”
“Your turn.”
“Best two out of three?”
“It took us four tries to get one out of one done. Your turn.”
I glared at Mark and was filled with a powerful hatred for how totally correct he was. “Fine,” I said. “But if you start the movie before I get back, you’re getting the one I licked.”
His head bobbed absently as he fiddled with the cords on the old DVD player. I wanted to kick him and knew that he knew that I knew that I wouldn’t do it.
God, the things you learn about each other when you’re locked in a tiny base for months. And more importantly, the things you learn to put up with.
The outer hatch squeaked open with enough violence, and I almost fell face-first into the blizzard.
Lovely, fresh Antarctic weather. The sort of air you could skip pebbles off of. And hanging off the roof a foot from my head, some daisy-fresh ice clumps, just ripe and perfect.
I snapped three little fistfuls off, one at a time, and this behaviour was so reflexive and so automatic that my mind wandered and I didn’t realize I was making eye contact with the penguin until I was ready to go back inside.
“Hi,” I said.
Well, that was stupid.
The penguin didn’t say anything. The penguin just stared at me with that little penguin face. It was a fat little Adelaide; black-headed with white circles around its dark eyeballs.
“Hi,” I said again.
Well, that was stupider.
The penguin still didn’t say anything. Just stared with that little penguin face. Then it softly bulged at the edges, swelled up like a balloon, and made a low throbbing sound that sprinkled dark spots against the edge of my vision.
***
I licked all three of the ice clumps on the way back in. Mark was still fiddling with the DVD player as I poured the vodka.
“Pick your poison.”
“No thanks; you’ve licked all of them. What’s up?”
“Saw a penguin.”
“Weird.”
“I don’t think it was a penguin.”
“Weirder.”
“Either some kind of weird mutant or an alien.”
“Weirdest. So, Doctor Doolittle tonight?”
“Men In Black.”
“Fair.”
We watched the movie for the sixteenth time before breaking for maple syrup candies.
“Rock, paper scissors. Rock, paper scissors. Rock, paper scissors. Rock, paper scissors. Shit.”
There’s this trick where you drizzle the heated syrup on the snow. Turns into good-as taffy.
The penguin was still there. It was still partially inflated.
It had stopped making the sound, though. That was nice. It hadn’t been pleasant for my brain.
“Hi,” I said again, again.
It stared at me with that little penguin face.
“Want some candy?”
It stared at me with that little penguin face. Then it rotated its head seven hundred and twenty degrees and it popped off and fell into the snow so it could stare at me with its eyes in the back of its little penguin head and also the smaller penguin head that was sticking out of its neck stump.
***
“You’re five seconds late.”
“Penguin was still there. Its head fell off and now it has two.”
“Huh,” said Mark. “Well, it’s the middle of winter.”
“Yeah.”
“’Nother movie?”
“Nah.”
“Knew you’d say that.”
Mark and I have been doing this for a while. I know he knows that I’d say that. He knew that too. We both know that. He’s just the only one that feels the need to reaffirm his knowledge, because he’s an insecure little jackass.
“Am not.”
See?
“I’m going to bed,” I said.
“Knew you’d say that.”
The sounds of the snow were too ordinary and everyday to lull me to sleep.
But they were nice.
**
When I woke up the penguin was sitting in the corner of the room and it was surrounded by sixteen of its heads and all of them were staring at me and singing. My eyes were flickering on and off like I’d turned the shower too high; and there was a sluggish sensation on my lip that I suspected was trickling blood.
“Fuck off,” I said, and I threw my boot at it. It vanished inside its chest without a trace.
“Little shithead.”
I got dressed and took twice my usual dose of coffee.
“That’s twice your usual dose of coffee.”
“Thank you, commodore obvious.”
“Penguin?”
“Corner of the room, sixteen heads, unearthly wailing.”
“Rough.”
“Nah. But it ate my boot.”
“You threw it at it, didn’t you?”
“No call for it to eat it.”
“I’d eat something if you threw it at me.”
I threw a mug at him. He ducked.
“Liar.”
***
When I went into my room again the penguin was gone, and things went back to normal for exactly eighty hours.
***
It was a movie night again, and Mark was taking longer than usual at the DVD player because the penguin had incorporated him into its torso.
“Just let me do it,” I told him.
“No. This is my job.”
“You’ve got flippers, Mark. Fuck off and let me help.”
“No!” he honked agitatedly, and I knew my nose was going to be bleeding again soon.
“Don’t do that shit. You know I hate it when you do that shit.”
“Then don’t try and take my job!”
I threw my other boot at him. It vanished inside his mouth.
“Don’t throw things at me.”
“Don’t see why not. It stopped you from being a liar again, didn’t it?”
He tried to ignore me. Honestly, he’d been an even bigger asshole than usual ever since the penguin got him. I hoped that didn’t happen to me whenever it got around to it.
“I can’t believe this sort of shit keeps happening,” he sighed. “Every damned winter.”
“It’s a good place for it,” I said. “Isolated. Good preservation. Easily spotted from orbit”
Mark burped and swallowed the DVD player.
And of course, after a while, you learn to put up with just about anything.