It was all he could say these days. The warning signs came a
couple of years before he was put into the asylum when he talked nonsense about
penguins, like how they always wore tuxedos to look smart. His friends thought
it was wonderful that he had adopted a penguin; it was a cry for help.
When September came around he started a job in a new place.
He had friends, old and new, in the city but it was living alone that he couldn’t
get used to. The neighbours complained about fishy smells and squawking at
unholy hours of the morning. When questioned, he reasoned that he must have
left the fridge open and the television on and apologised for the trouble he
had caused. Yet the rumours he had been keeping a penguin in his apartment were
deemed true when one of his neighbours, while walking their dog, saw him
wandering around the park with a penguin in a leash. The adopted penguin was
returned to the zoo, and he was taken for a mental check-up.
It was an obsession, the test found. There was something
unnatural about his like for penguins. The examiners asked for details about
his past; was there a traumatic story in his past about penguins. His tale
about eating cold lasagne and then watching an episode of Pingu afterwards did
not impress them. He was declared mentally unwell and sent to a home just for a
little while for some rest.
He would have been fine. The modern world had taken its toll
on a fragile mind and some time away would have restored all functions back to
normal. Unfortunately, there was a miscommunication between the mental
examiners and the home and he was given a strict routine of exposure to
penguins rather than being denied penguin related material. This meant watching
penguin documentaries, taking bath with wind up penguin toys that paddled in
the water, eating penguin shaped potato waffles and going to bed with a life
sized penguin toy to spoon.
After a month on this routine, the examiners came to see how
he was getting on. They were horrified at the mistake which had been made.
Though they tried an aggressive anti-penguin program by making him listen to
tapes of sea lions snarling, the effects of the previous treatment were irreversible.
Loved ones were informed, and as they cried for his well-being he replied with
three words.
I like penguins.
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