Blue Dust

Day 22: Lighter running low on butane, perhaps no fire tonight. Found a starfish and three sand dollars today. Howie still mumbling sales figures. Last night, I overcame the terrible urge to push him off the cliff. Still scanning horizon in hopes of a boat. Please leave my glass egg collection to Mrs. Hornby who lives in 5a. Darling, please watch yourself with that fellow, Don, the sandy-haired fitness instructor who lives in 2b, I feel his intentions are not honorable. Miss you terribly. Love, your sweetie-pie, Ken.

I try not to think too much about it, that sailing trip gone horribly wrong, when in the early mornings I sun myself on my favorite rock, toes in the sand, writing postcards in my head to my wife, Marjorie. This island is tiny and tear shaped, covered in lush tropical greenery. A humpbacked hill rises from the tapered beach to finish in a high cliff. The hill is rimmed in beach nearly to the end; where, an hour's walk from its tapered beginning, the cliff plunges 200 feet down to the water. At the flat tapered end, the beach is at its broadest. There the air shimmers in the heat, wobbling the sky beyond it. Sometimes in this shimmer I think I can see Marjorie walking out toward me, but it is only an illusion. My rock is close to the cliff, at the narrow part of the beach, and the sand is oddly pink here. If I stare at it too long, I think I see traces of blue. There is a definite blue powdery smudge on this rock, and I wonder how it got here. After three weeks, the bottom of my pants are tattered, the jagged edges crisped with salt and sand. My light hair is matted from weeks without washing, and the sand often sweeps into my blue eyes causing me to blink. My tanned bony shins appear to float between the bottom of my pants to where my feet disappear into the sand. So much shimmers on this island that I have started to doubt my eyesight. I try to tell myself what is good about the island. There is the bitter, coppery tasting spring I found near the middle of the island. There are coconuts. There are fish. If it weren't for the coppery smell that tinges the air here, I could shut my eyes, wiggle my toes, and pretend to be back in Florida, on the beach with Marjorie. Marjorie! If only I could be with her now.

The night before leaving for my multinational company's annual sales conference in São Paulo, I was in our condo in Miami, packing in our room and talking to my wife.

"You promised your next trip would be with me," she said, passing me my underwear, which she had folded. I was never sure why anyone folded underwear. Warm from the dryer, all my clothes smelled of Bounty baby powder fresh scent. Marjorie always used this scent before I went on business trips. It was as if she were protecting my clothing from having affairs. The truth is, since I met Marjorie, I've never looked at another woman twice.

"We're supposed to go to Antarctica," Marjorie sighed at me. "You promised." I watched her as she put her hands on her hips. She wants to see the ice and the seals and the penguins in Antarctica. It's only about $10,000 per head, but my wife was never one to be concerned with simple things like expenses.

She is looking up at me; her soft blonde curls framing her face. "Antarctica sounds like fun, but it's a bit expensive right now. Let me go on this trip, and we'll have enough air miles for both of us to fly down to the tip of South America."

Marjorie handed me the shoe bags, the blue ones she sewed herself, one for each shoe. What kind of woman sews a man shoe bags, so that his shoes won't tear the other clothing in his suitcase? You see I just had to marry her. Now we've been married 15 years. I wanted to take her to Antarctica too; I just needed to save a bit more money.

"You know that new fellow who just moved into 2b? The one with the sandy-colored hair?" she asked.

"You met him?" I asked. After just three weeks, I knew the fellow well enough. He was younger, taller, and fitter than me. None of which I would have bothered about, except that whenever we passed him in the hall, he always winked at Marjorie.

"Yeah. Don's a fitness instructor. Last year he taught on a cruise to the Arctic. He told me that Antarctica is the next destination on his list."

"I'm sure it is." I turned to Marjorie and put my arms around her. "Look dear, just one more business trip for me." I hugged her and held on to her tight. Before releasing her, I breathed in deep, my face in her hair, so I could feel her curls on my cheek and I could smell her herbal shampoo.

"Is Howard going to be there?" Marjorie wanted to know.

"He prefers Howie."

"Does he still wear wide ties?" Marjorie doesn't like Howie much, because he always wants to go to the girlie bars. Officially, I'm not allowed to go with him. According to Marjorie. I'm not much interested in the sleazy dancing girls anyway, but sometimes I have to do business with Howie, and he takes me there. The other reason Marjorie doesn't like Howie is because he has a knack for getting into trouble. Like the time those cops stopped us for running a stop sign in Nice, France, and Howie tried to bribe them, because, according to Howie, "that's how you do it in these third-world countries." It's true that when you travel as much as we do, sometimes you start to lose track of where you are, but the French cops did not appreciate his comment. We were only in jail for three hours before Howie's boss came to bail us out.

Usually, at these annual sales conferences, I try to avoid Howie as much as possible, but as soon as I got off the plane in São Paulo, he was there.

"Figured you'd be coming in on this flight. Surprised to see me?" he said, smacking his lips. This was one of the many annoying traits about Howie. He blew his nose often. And he was always reaching out to you, slapping your back or punching you in the shoulder. His favorite expression was "Gotta know your customer." Despite his high sales figures, Howie had an amazing knack for maintaining a not-put-together look. His suit was always crumpled, as though he could never find one that fit him quite right. Whenever he stuffed his hankie back in his pants pocket, he never pushed it all the way in, so that one corner hung out of the pocket.

"Yup, Kenny boy," he punched me in the shoulder, "gotta know your customer. You are as predictable as the ole milkin' cow my grandmother used to keep," he said, smacking. "Of course I'm here to meet you. Can't let you come to Brazil for the first time, with no one to show you the ropes. 'Course Howie's here to meet you, we can ride into town together." No matter where he was, Howie always insisted on renting a car at the airport. At least he had been to São Paulo once before.

"Are you over there, Kenny boy?" Howard breaks my reverie. Morning was my one respite from Howard, and now he has found my rock! Like a faithful dog, Howie prefers to stick close to me, and he doesn't like to be left alone. Over the last few weeks, I've learned to be gentle with Howie, let him go his own way. Since the sailing trip gone horribly wrong, Howie--his unwashed hair sticking to his face and neck, his shoes lost--mostly sits in the sand in the shade of a palm tree on the far side of the island. As long as he knows I'm within his sight, he's content to sit there and stare at the water, muttering sales quotes to himself. If I wander too far, he gets up to follow me, saying, "Need some help with those sales figures, Kenny boy?" Except for the early morning, I try not to let him get too much sun. Usually at this time of day, I can sneak away unnoticed by Howie while he sucks on his morning coconut, but this morning Howie has found me.

"Here," he says, and he offers me a coconut, already split. The front of his hair sticks straight up this morning, as if he has been running his fingers through it. "Your mornin' corn flakes." Then he laughs, a high nervous sound, like a hyena choking. "Cornflakes," he says again, wrapping his arms around himself. He chokes, and his laugh turns and becomes more of a sob. "Cornflakes," he says, hugging himself and swaying slightly, sobbing loudly now. "God Almighty, how are we going to get off this forsaken place?"

"Grip, Howie, grip," I say, my legs tensing now. I try to breathe deeply, my chest swelling with air. Howie completely losing it could not possibly be a good thing for either of us. When we first landed, I tried to pull Howie out of his trance by showing him the coconut trees and how to crack a coconut to get the milk inside. I showed him where to find the bitter, coppery tasting spring. On this side of the island, the water is shallow and it is easy to catch a fish with your hands. Since the storm, the weather has been hot and dry, and we never bothered about building a shelter. Every night I show Howie how to make a fire, carefully layering the sticks of dry driftwood.

It was Howard who conveniently found this island for us. The storm must have blown the ship off course, because we weren't supposed to be near any islands. The fog was too thick to see much, and the interference from the storm was making all the navigation instruments go zany, their readouts meaningless. That's when Howard found this island by running the boat aground on the sandbar that juts out from the island for about half a mile. We couldn't see the island, but Howie said he could smell land. The boat, stuck in the sandbar, was breaking up fast, the waves pounding its hull. We jumped ship and swam for it, the island appearing through the fog almost as soon as we made our jump. It floated there, and I was sure the whole island was in my imagination only, the trees waving in the wind of the storm. But then Howie pointed toward it, and even though I still felt it must all be an illusion, I knew he could see it too. A piece of the boat floated by, and we grabbed it, swimming toward the shore. The broken wooden piece we had in our hands was smudged blue, the same blue that was on my rock.

"We're not too far from Rio," Howie told me in the car, driving out of the airport, turning his head to speak to me. "We could go over to Santos, rent a boat, go for a sail. At home, I've been sailing my 30-footer." Howie was from Raleigh, North Carolina, but he was always going on about his boat in Hatteras.

"You sail before, Kenny boy?"

The last time I sailed, I got my little white badge when I was 13, sailing the two-person Sunfish. "Sure," I said, "I've sailed a bit." All I could remember was lower your head when the boom went around. Some terms like starboard, tack, and port seemed familiar.

"I checked the weather from the net," Howie said. "Weather Channel dot com. Looks good for the next two days, anyways."

Turns out it was three days before we were able to sail out. By the time we found the place where you could rent boats, haggled with the boat owner, and got towed out of the marina, it was already past noon. When Howie saw how big the boat was, he did a little jolt, and he shook his shoulders.

"Think we can manage this one, Kenny boy?" He slapped me on the back. I was thinking about Marjorie and our little condo in Miami. Before I left, she had put up a huge framed poster in the living room. The poster was a picture of a line of penguins, all facing the camera, with the glow of the sun in a thin line on the horizon behind them. I wished I was there right now, my arm around Marjorie, looking at the poster instead of this huge white boat.

"Well, this one has lots of high tech equipment. Can't get lost," Howie laughed a shallow high laugh. For once his mouth seemed dry, no smacking.

"Grip, OK, grip," Howie repeats. His sobs subdue as he tries to breathe deeply along with me. "Grip," he says, letting his arms drop to his sides. He stares at the sea for a while, and I try to relax, letting my toes unclench the sand. I notice there are some clouds building up on the horizon today, and I wonder if that means rain. Then Howie seems to be attracted by something in the sand, where the water recedes from the shore.

"Look, Kenny boy!" Howie points to where the sand meets the water. I see sand, a few pebbles, and tiny holes here and there. "Air holes!" Howie says. "That means clams. There are some clams living under here. We are going to have a feast tonight." And he runs the few short steps to the edge of the water. "Ooh. Ha fish! There is a new item on the menu tonight. We are going to eat some clams!" He kneels down and, with his fingers, he starts to dig in the sand.

I look at Howie digging. The past few days he's been getting his own coconuts, muttering less, and helping me with the fire. But two days ago he started this digging habit, looking for clams in the sand. Yesterday he dug for three hours. So far there have been no clams. I never saw any breathing holes until today, so maybe this morning he'll find some, even though there is no pot to boil them in. I try to imagine the smell of coconut-steamed clams, when I notice that Howie's fingers have turned blue. There is a pile of muddy wet sand at his side. In his digging, he seems to have reached a blue layer. What could make soil blue, I wonder.

"Kenny boy!" Howie says. He waves at me, jumping up and down. "Look!" He holds up a golden lamp. "Pirate's treasure!"

I stand up from my rock. "Wow," I say. I walk over to Howie. "Let me see," I say, reaching out to take the lamp. It looks like a wonky golden teakettle, elongated and stretched as if someone had squished it, the spout long and tapered.

"Give me that," Howie says, grasping the lamp's handle and not giving it up. We have a tug of war; Howie gripping the handle of the lamp, his knuckles white, me pulling on the tapered end.

"Hey, hey," I say. "C'mon, I just want to see it! What's the matter with you." He doesn't release his grip on the lamp. "Fine, have your lamp" I say, and let go. Howie glares at me and holds the lamp close to his body, rubbing it.

"Whoa," Howie says, dropping the lamp as if it has burnt his fingers. In a flash of smoke, a large beefy-looking guy appears in front of us, his skin covered in blue dust. He bends over, sweeping one hand out before us.

"At your service," he says.

"Well, look at that! My ol' Grandpa John wasn't feedin' us kids a bunch of bull after all," Howie says.

With one hand shielding my eyes from the sun, I stare up at the Genie, who has to be at least seven feet tall.

"Fresh sweet water!" I yell, thinking that if I only pinch myself, I'll wake up next to Marjorie.

"Clams," Howie says to the Genie. "We want clams for supper." I punch Howie as hard as I can. A light sensation comes into my mind, a nudge to myself, a cloudy feeling that I am forgetting something important; a feeling that gathers itself and condenses to a clear hard piece of panic in my throat. I swallow. I look blankly out to the horizon, where the sky meets the sea.

"Home!" I say, quickly. "We want to go home. That's our wish, to go home."

"Ah ha," the Genie said. "A simple job for me. You shall go home, then."

Howie kicks me. I forgot that he was going through a bad divorce from his third wife.

"But I find you most impolite." The Genie sits down on my favorite rock, resting one foot on the other knee. "Has the sun taken away your manners? There is no hello, no how are you? I sleep for a thousand years, and the first thing I hear are demands?" The Genie stretches and yawns, shakes one leg, then the other. A scattering of blue dust drops onto the pink sand. "I find you pesky," he says. "No wishes then," he says, and he folds his arms across his chest.

I hold up the lamp. "Ah, forgive me, uh--"

"Aldo," the Genie replies.

"Aldo," I say, "don't you owe us?" I hold the lamp by one finger, and swing it to and fro.

The Genie stands up straight and rubs his chin. "Maybe, it shouldn't be so easy for you two, though, hmmm?"

He doesn't look like much of a Genie to me. Wherever the blue dust is knocked off, his skin is a sallow gray color, not blue at all, and it sags around his ankles giving him the appearance of an old elephant. He's wearing cut off gray sweat pants. He smells like raspberries.

"OK, you are tired from your ordeal, no? Tonight we will eat and rest. Tomorrow we shall go up to that cliff over there." We follow Aldo's gaze to the end of the beach, where one side of a cliff rises up from the sand. The other side drops straight into the deep ocean. "You can run off the cliff, yell the name of your favorite bird, and fly away home," the Genie guffaws and flaps his arms. "Yes, flap flap flap all the way. Each of you must choose a different bird. Then when you land, you will be yourself again. Yes?"

Howie nods. He is desperate to get off the island. I am too, but I'm not so sure the plan will work. I mean Genie here isn't giving us any tips on what bird we should pick.

Aldo, towering over us on the beach, looks at us, smirking. "Now, let's see about the water and the fish, shall we?"

"Clams," Howie says, running his fingers through his hair.

"Yes," Aldo says, "that is what I said, water and clams."

Howie and I look at each other.

"Ahem," Aldo says. With a great flourish, he reaches behind his back. There is another flash of smoke and the smoke smells strongly of copper, just like the bitter spring. Out of this smoke Aldo produces a clay jar of water but this water is sweet and not bitter at all. After three weeks of the bitter spring, it is our first taste of such water, and we slurp and slurp.

"Thirsty are we?" Aldo says. "Ah, now for the clams." Aldo wanders into the ocean. I try to ask Howie about what birds we should be, but he is quiet and thoughtful. The Genie wades out of the ocean with some fish and some clams that he scooped up from the sandy ocean floor.

"Yes, we will eat well tonight," Aldo says, carrying two large fish in the crook of his blue arm, and dumping the clams on the sand in front of Howie. Aldo wrinkles his forehead as he looks at the pile of clams. He puts the fish next to the clams. "Perhaps a basket would be better, no?" Aldo stands up straight and clears his throat. "Ahem." Once again, with a great flourish he reaches behind his back. There is another flash of smoke, smelling of burnt copper. This time Aldo produces what looks to be a large necklace; strung with baubles and coins, the necklace jingles and flashes in the sun.

"Ooh, sorry." Aldo blushes, a strange purplish color in his cheeks. "I was thinking about Aldesia, a belly dancer I use to know. This seems to be her dancing belt." And Aldo starts to hum and dance about the sand, jingling the belt in one hand and trying to gyrate his tummy.

Howie runs his fingers through his hair again. I look out towards the ocean and pinch myself as hard as I can several times.

"Ahhh, Aldesia," Aldo sighs, gazing at the belt. He looks down at us. "Oh, yes, baskets. Ahem." Aldo drops the belt behind his back and it disappears; a scattering of blue dust falling on the sand below. Aldo performs another flourish.

Out of the smoke a white plastic bottle falls to the sand in a puff of its own blue dust. The bottle has holes in its cap and it is the same size and shape as the jar of baby powder Marjorie keeps in our bathroom. I squint at its label. It reads "Jonah's & Jonah's Blue Best Magic Talc. Raspberry Scent."

"Oops," Aldo picks up the bottle. "And I thought I was out of this stuff." He bends his huge body back up and looks at us. He rubs one eye with his fist. "Hmmm, perhaps I am still sleepy. Perhaps this is why I have no baskets." Although we have said nothing, he puts one hand out in the air toward us, showing us his palm as if to say stop.

"Shhh! Let Aldo concentrate," he says. He shuts his eyes and snaps his fingers in the air. Out of this flash of smoke a very small basket appears. It is big enough to fit one clam. Aldo bends over to peer at the basket. "Hmmm." He snaps his fingers again, and the basket becomes large enough to hold all the clams.

"Now, time to get some sun, hmmm?" Aldo lies down on the sand, stretching his blue body out like a giant four legged starfish, and starts to snore. The blue dust is scattered in the sand all around us.

As I stare at the Genie, I try to remember which birds fly and which birds don't, and who can fly the farthest. I mean, I just don't think that a robin or sparrow could handle the flight, unless the Blue Wonder Genie invests us with some magical powers, and who's to say he won't let us just fall on the rocks? What if I get nervous and yell out Dodo bird at the last minute. Who wants to be a Dodo bird? Did they even fly? What if the magic doesn't work when we touch ground back home, our little bird feet making scrawny marks in the sand, running down the beach. Would Marjorie take me in if I showed up at our door as a cormorant? Would she recognize me? Would she give me a dry room to sleep in and bring me fish? I try to think of ocean birds that can fly a long way. Seagull, cormorant, penguin? Then I remember that penguins don't fly. I try to concentrate on choosing a bird. It's not like I know too much about birds, I mean, being a sales guy.

That night, we sit around the fire the Genie made for us, and as we eat I think about my warm house in Florida. Howie eats all the clams himself. The Genie licks the fresh grilled fish from his fingers.

"For two people who've been stranded, you two are awfully quiet," says Aldo. "So, it is a beautiful island, no? What is your rush to get back home?"

Howie slurps on a clam. "Civilization," he says.

"Marjorie," I say in a quiet voice, thinking about our home in Florida.

"Aack, eck," Aldo puts a finger in his mouth and pulls out a bone. "Excuse me, hem, fish bone." He drinks from the clay jar.

"Well then," Aldo says, "Home it shall be! Have you practiced your flying?" Aldo flaps his arms and laughs. "Maybe you can practice in your dreams, no?" He sits back on the sand and laughs loudly, guffawing for several minutes. "Ahmm, excuse me." He wipes the tears from his eyes, chuckling. "Ahhh, time for this Genie to take another nap. All this magic is very tiring. Wait!" Aldo sits up and glances all around himself. "Where's my lamp?"

It is next to me. It seems that I have carried it around with me all day. I pick up his lamp and dangle it from one finger in front of him again.

"Oh good," Aldo says. "Can't lose that! Well, good night gentlemen. Sleep well, remember, you are flying home tomorrow." He laughs and lies down on the sand. Soon he is snoring again.

"Hey, Howie," I whisper. Howie has already lain down in the sand, himself.

"Howie!" I try again.

"Huh?" Howie looks over at me.

"Howie! What bird are you gonna be?"

"Don't know yet," Howie says. He sniffs and rolls over, his back toward me.

That night, I dream of Marjorie. We are together again, and everything around us is white. I reach out to touch her.

Then Howie punches me, and I wake up. "Time to fly home, Kenny boy." Howie's face is red and puckered. The campfire smells like dried fish. We eat whatever is left, and the Genie produces the clay jar of fresh water, again, so we drink as well.

We climb up to the cliff. The sky is blue and clear. I've almost narrowed it down to two birds, seagull or cormorant. But I can't stop thinking about Marjorie, and our trip to Antarctica, and her picture of the penguins. I can't wait to get home to hold her again. Thinking about Marjorie, instead of concentrating on the path, I trip.

"Whoa, Kenny boy," Howie catches me. "Hope you fly better than you can walk, ha ha." He laughs at his own joke.

At the top of the cliff, we draw straws to see who should go first. We stand on a little wind-swept clearing at the edge of the cliff. The sun glints on the waves, and the breeze smells coppery, like the taste of the spring and the Genie's flashes of smoke. I keep pinching myself, hoping that I'll wake up next to Marjorie. Howie draws the short straw.

"Good job, Howie!" says Aldo. "You'll be the first to fly."

"I'll send you a postcard when I get back, ha ha." He tries to smack his lips, but his mouth is dry again.

"It is good weather for flying, today, yes? Yes, yes, good weather for you two," Aldo tells us.

There is enough space to take five running steps before the end of the cliff. We go as far back to the end of the clearing as we can, to get more runway. Howie slaps me on the back.

"Well, no sense in delaying," he says. And he runs off the cliff. "Seagull!" and then Howie was gone!

Howie was a seagull!! I look at the Genie with a renewed fondness. Then I realize that Howie had taken my choice for a bird.

Aldo looks at me. I try desperately to think of birds. Sparrow, no, dodo, no, pen--no. "Well," the Genie motions at me, "are we going to fly off the island today? Your friend has already left."

I back up into the trees, so that I can get a good long runway. Birds fly through my mind. Pengu--no stupid, penguins don't fly! I think of Marjorie and her penguin picture. Would I ever see her again? Think of birds, think of birds--sparrow, robin, seagull, albatross--that's it! Albatross! I decide to run for it. I concentrate on the word albatross. What does an albatross look like?

"It is an offer valid for today, only." Aldo looks at me. His blue dust seems streaky today, as if he applied his talc in a hurry, leaving streaks of gray skin showing beneath the blue. "Today only," Aldo says, leaning toward me.

I take a running leap and stub my toe on a rock at the edge of the cliff.

"Shit." I feel myself falling. Oh no, Marjorie! I think of our living room, with Marjorie standing in front of her picture of the penguins. I open my eyes to see the water rushing toward me. "Penguins! Marjorie!" My body rolls into a dive. I sail through the water.

As soon as I hit the water, I knew in which direction to swim. On instinct, I knew exactly where to go, as sure as I knew my own driveway. It would be a long trip home. I swam on instinct, swimming for days, swimming for months. To pass the time, I imagined that I was a reporter, reporting on my penguin self, the swimming phenomenon: "Penguins have been known to travel up to 3,000 miles...." One day, I heard the unmistakable caw of a seagull above, so I swam up to the surface and let myself float there. The seagull had a dash of blue on its belly, and the feathers on its head stuck straight up, kind of like--Howie! Howie, I honked. I watched the gull circle above me, and he cawed in a lonesome manner, as if he was lost. Howie, I honked again, is that you? Howie didn't seem to understand my honks. I tried to concentrate on his soft cawing. It was a long mournful sound, from which I couldn't understand any words. I was about to motion to Howie with my flipper, to tell him to follow me. Then I heard a whoosh and a splash of white crud plopped into the ocean next to me. Hey, I honked, you just missed me! The gull circled one more time and flew away. I dived back into the ocean and kept swimming.

Swimming, swimming, swimming. Swimming on instinct. as the feeling grew that I was nearly home, the thought came to me that the waters had been getting cooler and cooler throughout my trip. I had been too excited about getting home to Marjorie to notice. An abhorrent thought entered my mind. Months after leaving the island, my flippers ached from swimming. A barnacle had rooted itself on my left toe, making that whole webbed foot sore. Surely the Genie wouldn't let me down, I thought. Surely I'm almost home. So I reassured myself, and I let the abhorrent thought swirl out of my tired penguin head. The waters got even colder.

I arrived on the outer islands of Antarctica, just in time for winter. The other penguins showed me how to do penguin stuff, like where to catch different kinds of fish and how to clean my furry feathers. Sometimes a penguin named Oncha comes to swim next to me. She has a pretty tuft of yellow below her neck. It is the same light color as Marjorie's blonde hair.

Now it is almost spring. Yesterday some bright red rubber rafts motored by, then stopped, and some tourists straggled out. Then there she was! Marjorie! She must have used the insurance money to take her trip to Antarctica. There was a sandy-haired man with her--the fitness instructor! I walked away from the group of penguins so that she could see me, but she turned to look at the ice in the other direction. So I jumped up and down on my flippers, honked, and flapped my wings as hard as I could.

"Look at me, look at me!"

Don turned to Marjorie and said, "Oh look, isn't he cute, he wants us to take his picture."

Marjorie finally looked over at me. Marjorie! I flapped towards her for a hug. Why was Marjorie looking at me like that? Then I remembered that I was a penguin.

Marjorie kneeled down and focused her camera, clicking to take a picture. "Why, I do believe that this one looks a bit like my husband who drowned in that horrible hurricane."

"Yes, Marjorie," I honked, jumping, flapping, "it's me, it's me." I thought that maybe she'd come closer and let me put a flipper on her hand.

"Oh Marjorie," Don said. From my penguin perspective, he looked taller than how I had remembered him. He said, "You're still grieving. Don't worry, baby, I'll make you feel better." He put his arm around her shoulder and looked at her. I saw him wink at her, and I padded on the ice toward him. I wanted to beak him, to bite him good and hard, to taste his shin in my mouth.

Marjorie looked at me, and her expression changed. "You know," she said, "he kind of sounds like my husband."

"Yes, Marjorie!" I cried. I jumped and honked some more. I flapped and tried to dance a little salsa step, so that she would know that it was I.

"Why, he even dances like Ken," Marjorie said. She moved her camera away from her face to look at me directly. I waddled closer. I tried to hold her gaze.

I cried out to her. Marjorie honk I miss you, I love you honk, take me home. I jumped and flapped. I can live in your bathtub honk. It's me Marjorie, it's me honk honk. I was close enough to touch her then. I held out one flipper.

"Crazy penguin," Don said. "Come on, Marjorie, everyone's leaving. Let's get back in the zodiac." I held out my flipper to Marjorie, but Don turned her back to the boat, and then they were gone.

Slowly I am getting used to being a penguin. You get to swim a lot and we eat a lot of seafood. Swimming is the best. Whenever I think about Marjorie too much, I dive into the water to swim with the penguins. After my encounter with Marjorie yesterday, I dive deeper than usual. I bank and roll, and that is when I remember that Marjorie took my picture. So perhaps she won't forget me after all. The air in my brain is starting to feel low and I rush upwards. The water rushes by me, and I try to forget. Forget about Marjorie and the condo we used to share together. I think about the Genie and curse him, but I know that I have to let my anger go. I must choose to forget about Howie and the Genie and how I got here. Before I let the rushing water wash all this away, I realize that there is one more thing that I have to do. I am closer to the surface now, which is good, because my air is low. I hear Oncha and the other penguins calling me from the surface. It is time to go home. Soon, I will join the other penguins on the ice. I will use the last bit of oxygen in my brain to concentrate fully on being a penguin. Swimming forcefully, I will shoot up out of the water, and touch down softly on the ice. I know that in a few moments, I will do this. Oncha says that she wants me to make an egg with her, and I will do this too. But before I can forget, before I can fully join the others on the ice, there is one more thing I need to do.

Day 331 as a penguin: Dear Marjorie, I realize that too much has come to pass between us. The circumstances prevent us from being together. I understand that I have been selfish to think otherwise. I am sorry that you didn't recognize me, recognize my pain, which I carry behind my feathery breast. Was one last hug too much to ask? But perhaps I am selfish again. As a penguin, I just don't have that much to offer you. It's time for me to let you go. I trust you will understand this, and I hope you can find happiness with Don. I, myself, must tend to my penguin duties now. Best of luck. Love, your penguin, Ken.

Photo by Jeffry Pike
Copyright © 2001 The President and Fellows of Harvard College.
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