The Penguin that wished it could fly: Penguin, #1

By Marcel van Heijzen

About this book

Those who know me also know that I have the habit of dressing a joke in a serious story or the reverse.

When I created this story, it started as an animal story, which I meant as a bit of fun. The story escalated, as the information I present in the book needed to be as near to correct as possible, and I got involved in life in Antarctica.

The story is about a king penguin, Twarty, who goes on a trip around Antarctica to acquire knowledge, as knowledge, in her view, will allow her to learn to fly. During her travels, she meets a lot of others, and eventually, she discovers a lot about life, and how to follow the flow.

The story relates to the way to the way animals live. However, it addresses our human behaviour, the way we treat each other, and the world, the progress we make, and the issue that we do not recognise long term progress.

Twarty, the king penguin, became part of my life, and I will need time to get her out of my system.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marcel van Heijzen
• Release date: Oct 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201586775

Book preview

The Penguin that wished it could Fly

Marcel van Heijzen

Books by the Same Author

Beating Cancer

Spiritual Development

Short Stories

The Life of Derek

My Life as a Lioness

A Life of Adversary

The Path

A Seekers Guide

Life’s Surprises

The Alternative

I dedicate this book to Twarty

She became part of my life during the period of near to one year that it took me to write this book.

The pandemic assisted in cutting the time short!

Acknowledgements

Although this book is about animals, the events described are about people, mainly those I met during my life. To all those people I like to thank them for making my life a rich event; at times pleasant, and, at the time, challenging

When anybody would like to discuss items in this book, please get in touch. I am always available for those that need contact or assistance.

To get in contact, please, write an e-mail to:

[e-mail]

You can also register on my website to receive my weekly blog.

https://alyaconsultancy.com/

The writing of this book started in December 2019

Copyright of this book rests with Marcel van Heijzen.

All parts of this book may be copied and used, provided you reference the author.

Contents

Introduction

Animals who are part of the story

Meeting up with Twarty

Meeting other members of the colony

The Snow Petrel

Preparation for the Quest

The White-Tailed Eagle

Meeting an Orca

Meeting a Crocodile

Encountering a Polar Bear

Travelling with a Polar Bear

Travelling with a Reindeer

Travelling with a Skua

The encounter with a Sea Lion

The Wandering Albatross

Meeting Octar

Return to the Colony

A discussion with Logan

Starting the animal-human relationship

References

About the author

Introduction

Istarted writing this book with two simple statements:

The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

Knowledge gives you wings, to rise above and reach soaring heights.

Later, I added the knowledge of the lost word, which, to some people, refers to a lost language. To me, it relates to the human inability to communicate in the way we were meant to transmit information.

I found in the story below a reference to this language, but I am short of information. I would appreciate any details on this subject.

A long time ago, on the land right under your feet, people understood more than we understand today. They translated the murmurings of the four-leggeds and the calls of the winged ones. The buzz of a bee had meaning, as did the glub, glub of the salmon swimming upstream to spawn.

Most essential for us to here and now, those long-ago people understood the whispers of the green world. The gentle twisting of flowers toward the sun had meaning as did the way the wind whistled through the slow-growth forests hugging steep mountainsides.

For reasons only the Cherokee can share, we lost our ability to communicate.

And we have searched for this lost language ever since.

To commence the writing, I needed to select a subject animal. A king penguin seemed ideal, so Twarty came to life. My knowledge of animals who occupy Antarctica was non-existing, so I had to spend a lot of study time to learn about what animals live on that continent, and what the habits are of these species. During this process, I became intimately connected to my creations. In between, I wrote another book, so I put Twarty and her companions on hold for several weeks. However, she never got out of my mind, and now I completed the story, I need a few months to recover and get the details of these friends out of my mind.

I never realised how many different animals live in the coldest area of our planet and that Antarctica is the largest landmass on earth. The details of the survival of the animals that live there are intriguing. In the process of my writing, I established the difference between the Arctic and Antarctica, The North Pole and the South Pole. One is never too old to learn such facts. The amount of research I copied was more than the size of this book; another statistic which I never did before.

Some of you may think that Reindeer are not local to Antarctica. For those; they got introduced in the 20th century by Norwegian whalers.

During the writing of the story, I made up some things that are not part of their behaviour; animals do not use the English language, and defending each other is not often seen. I had to make the story interesting. Behaviour patterns are based on the study of the real animals, although, most animals usually do not go on a trip to learn about the world and its inhabitants. There again, has anybody ever studied the animal kingdom sufficiently to confirm that something like this story could never happen?

Enjoy the story, and recognise the learning as it applies to humanity.

Animals who are part of the story

Twarty A female king penguin, the hero of this story.

Othy An aunt of Twarty, who advises her on proper behaviour in the colony.

Octar A male king penguin, who later becomes the partner of Twarty.

Buthy A less attractive king penguin, a girlfriend of Twarty, but also a bit jealous.

Docha The father of Twarty.

Logan An old and wise king penguin, the mentor of Twarty.

Whitey Nickname for the snow petrel, his real name is not revealed.

Humpback whale Name not known

Anaty A female crocodile, and a friend of Twarty.

Macht A male baby polar bear, who befriends Twarty.

Aspect A young female reindeer, who became one of the friends of Twarty.

Dang A skua friend of Twarty.

Dovy A skua, and uncle of Dang.

Bratterwalmiosty, Brat  A sea lion, and a friend of Twarty.

Hunia A wandering Albatross, and one of the young friends of Twarty.

Honty A baby Ross seal, who receives some assistance from Twarty.

Meeting up with Twarty

Twarty is a king penguin , and she is desperate to learn to fly. Mostly, we see the wishes of doing things that others can do in humans. Animals are intelligent, and they, since long, realised that living with the body they received from nature is the best, and the only way to go through life. To make this book happen, I had to make some changes to what we understand to be the reality. Of course, king penguins are birds, but they are quite unusual as a bird; they live in Antarctica, they love the extreme cold, and they cannot fly. For some reason, their development over the ages produced a bird that dives, swims, but lost its ability to fly. Usually, these animals do not mind the way their life flows. They go through their cycle without questioning whether there is more to life. However, we found, after extensive research, a female called Twarty, who has the desire to fly, like her predecessors likely could. Do animals have feelings like desires? Obviously, they have, else this story would not have come about.

As is usual with any story, it only makes sense when we believe in the facts as presented. Be aware that bent reality is also a reality. Our politicians know this too well!

We let Twarty introduce herself:

Hi. I am Twarty, and I am a king penguin. Life in Antarctica is quite cold, but to me, it is comfortable. My body likes cold weather, and when the temperature goes up, my mates and I like to move to colder areas. We do not appreciate the higher temperatures. We know there are lots of fish under the ice, and near our colony, there are hardly any killer whales or other hunters. These orcas look nice and friendly, but do not let them get anywhere near; they love to eat birds like us. We live in a large community, called a waddle, or a colony. I do not know why we got that name; ask a human. The name does not have a good ring to it. At times, they call part of our group a rookery, when there are young in the colony. In the water, we are called a raft. Personally, I like the name colony the best for our group.

Life in the colony is good and safe, but it does not allow any of us much privacy. I have my thoughts, but that is it, they are thoughts. I cannot convert these into action, as anything that goes against the behaviour of the colony is not allowed. At times I find locations where I can be on my own. I like to go there, and sit alone, thinking about things that I am not allowed to discuss with the members of the colony.

Over the last few months, I wondered why we cannot fly. We are birds, so what stopped us from behaving like birds? As far as my knowledge goes, all birds fly, except us. Of course, my knowledge does not go far; it would be better if I could fly around the world and see what goes on for myself. Instead, I have to live on an iceberg and dive in the water to hunt for fish. Do not misunderstand my statement; I like my life in the colony, but I do like to experience more. Swimming, hunting, waddling on floating ice; eventually, it gets boring.

I have an older aunt, Othy, who, at times, is willing to listen to my rambling about my thoughts. She told me that I should forget about my silly desire to learn to fly; there are lots of birds that cannot fly; for a start, there are hundreds in our colony. The argument she used is not ideal for a prolonged discussion, so I left it at that. She also informed me to keep my wishes private: Twarty, it is not a good plan to vent your alien thoughts in public. Others may think that you are not a real member of our colony, which may have horrible consequences; they may think that we, our family, included such thinking in your education! It is her opinion that when we live in a close-knit community, we need to adjust to the group. Having private thoughts is allowed, as long as we do not make these thoughts public, in any way.

Before I inform you about my thoughts, let me tell you about life in a colony. We tend to huddle close together. It avoids wind chill; we can stand the cold very well, but together with a fair wind, it can be quite chilly, and huddling helps us to avoid cooling down too much. All good things have disadvantages, and as I already told you, the result of huddling is that we have no privacy. We have the habit of being close together, and I do not always like this behaviour. One must have someplace of one’s own, to be alone with thoughts. Do I now sound like a human? Well, why not. We can learn a bit from humans as we can learn from every living entity in this world.

"We are careful to stay out of the way from humans; they look aggressive,