Monday 21 July 2008

Sadness, anger, resignation and loss

As of 10 minutes ago she was still with us. Weak but still here. Sparky has been a real hero. We have been taking turns to feed her but we have both exhausted what little we have to give.

It was strange last night that having been so anxious and then so angry, I came to a kind of resigned acceptance that what would happen would happen. It was curiously liberating and satisfying and reminded me of something I did a few years ago after Myfwany failed to return. I spontaneously wrote this poem in my head while someone in the station was playing the second movement of Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez (for guitar and orchestra) on their music player. The way the music develops, it goes from sadness to anger to resignation and is about the death of the composer's son not long after being born. I don't know if it was conscious or not, but the poem seemed to follow the same structure in a strange sort of way. Less the sentiment expressed, more the language used. Or maybe it's just the literary pretension rearing its head again. When I got a chance to type it up, it had changed slightly and was no longer about what it had started out being about, although traces are still there. Perhaps I'll post it before I go back to the sea but then again.......do I really want to embarrass myself that much?

I suppose I should apologise to any 'believers' out there for even thinking of asking for you to pray for a non believing penguin. It's not even as if God would have listened anyway, we have no souls, remember? Still you can see how religions might propagate. You get desperate and pray to some deity, a particular tree, the monkeys in the jungle and if by chance you get what it is you want then you might think the prayer had been answered. If a few more people enjoy the same good fortune you might actually think that prayer works. I don't think that's tenable nowadays following the double blind US research into the power of prayer, no seriously, which found not one iota of difference, not even a placebo effect. They used cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and groups of devout christians. They divided them up into four groups of patients: the first were prayed for and were told that was what was happening; the second were prayed for but were not told it was happening; the third were not prayed for and were told they had been left off the prayer list and the last group were not prayed for and were not told anything. Neither the doctors not the prayer groups knew exactly who was in what group (hence double blind). Not a jot of difference in survival rates!

A small trickle of females started to arrive about an hour ago, some other eggs have already started hatching. The main column according to Sparky is still some hours away, although it is not that big and there will no doubt be other columns to follow. I am trying not to hope that Fricka is in the first one. I think the disappointment might be more than I can take right now.

A weird thing happened this afternoon. I was feeding Fricka the last of my 'milk' (it's a kind of fatty fluid we can secrete for a little while to tide the chick over until real food arrives) when I got this impression of being stared at. Do you ever get that? Anyways I looked up and it seemed as if half the rookery was staring at me in what I thought was pity. I was starting to get a little bit self conscious when a familiar voice said "if you don't turn around now and open your mouth, I'm not going to be able to tip this cropful of fish down your gullet, am I? I don't think you want me imprinting your chick, do you?" Now penguins don't, can't smile but I swear Cozy was smiling, the widest,widest grin it is possible to imagine. "I'm sorry it took so long, I couldn't stop snacking while I was out there. I trust you have now learned your lesson and from now on, BEAKS are OUT!"

Did the monitor go a little bit blurry then? No? Oh well, you can't win them all! And if it did, I'm sorry. I couldn't resist not putting that bit first - perhaps I am becoming too much like you.

I am angry with them, Cozy, and Stingo and Sparky for not telling me (they knew), but I am also ashamed that it never even occured to me that he would, could, do what he did. When all is said and done, it is more dangerous in the ocean than it is here and.......So, I have, I think, learnt my lesson. I will rail against the cosmos but I will not abuse my friends.

Cozy says that Fricka has been seen on the ice west of the first column but a leopard seal has taken a part of her toe as a souvenir, so she is moving more slowly. Some of the other females are holding back so she is not alone. The damned bonxies will try if they think you are weak enough. Cozy has sent Stingo on the long trek for more food just in case. No doubt Cozy will find somewhere for it if it's not needed.

I must now stay until she comes. Without my voice she will never find 'little' Fricka in amongst the chaos here. Oh well, hunger we get used to. Tomorrow is a new dawn and perhaps we can expect more of a new day than I could ever have imagined this morning.

Oh and the title refers to the Rodrigo. What on earth else might it have referred to?

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