Today I wanted to break free of the news and the mood, so I posted a poll over on Spoutible to narrow down a topic:

https://static.spoutible.com/spout/embed.js

Right now, as I write, penguins are the clear leader, but there’s been some movement, there was a tie with “time travel” for a bit there. I also had some requests because of our bad timeline and just to have a break from this one.

So I have decided to take Prof Kyle’s suggestion under advisement, and do some combining. Who can resist time travel penguins? Not Sticky, whose own penguin Stumpy inspired our heroine’s name.

But before we get there, by popular demand (Elle and Virginia!) here is Benedict Cumberbatch trying to say “penguin:”

And now that the mood is right, I present to you as proof that we CAN make something out of nothing:

Stumpy the Time Traveling Penguin

Stumpy had lost the egg. It wasn’t her egg, mind, it was never her egg, but she was a reliable aunt of a babysitter. At least most of the time for most of those long, cold stretches when someone needed a break.

But this break had gone on longer than usual, so long, in fact, that Edgar the seagull, in his dry, ironic squawk, told her a week ago, “He’s not coming back.”

“Of course he’s coming back,” said Stumpy, “you shouldn’t listen to the gossip of geese.”

“Whatever you say,” said Edgar, as he flapped off.

But while Edgar may have been right, it might not matter, not anymore, if Stumpy couldn’t find that egg. It was right there, between her feet where it should have been, and then it wasn’t.

She waddled off to investigate, careful not to disturb the rest of the sleeping huddle.

As she skidded across the icy snow, a strange sound, different than the wind and shifting ground, tugged her in a direction she’d never gone. There were no tracks, no trail, just this sound and this feeling, as there was no hope of glimpsing white upon white.

Before her, a new blue glow streaked the ice, and the further the color went, the brighter and deeper it grew, undulating like water, but far from the shore. With no sign of the egg, she reached the source, a huge cave of ice, vibrating, pulsating with light.

Here the sound was loud but not unpleasant; the light irresistible. From the edge of the cave, the ice sloped steeply downward. Having already lost the egg and not having much else to lose, Stumpy gave a penguiny shrug, flopped on her belly and slid down, down, down, the blue getting bluer, the sound getting tinnier, and Stumpy growing more curious.

With a soft thud, she hit a flat bottom, careening across the base of the cave into the far ice wall.

Not graceful, no, but hey, no one was around to see. Probably.

There, in the center of the cave, was the egg.

Now, granted, maybe it wasn’t the same egg, there was that distinct possibility, but having had it in her charge for longer than she should have there was no arguing about it looking familiar.

It was shaking and rolling, and thin cracks bled the blue light. It was the source of the sound. As she watched, it wriggled and it shifted and then it split in half, the blue light now everywhere, brighter than ever.

Edging closer, Stumpy almost felt the blue, like clear ocean but better, and saw that somehow, somehow, within that egg, there was another egg.

She scooted to scoop it up between her feet, this errant egg, but as she was washed in the blue, the cave walls disappeared, the eggshell of the outside egg disappeared, and oddly she felt like she was disappearing, tumbling, soaring in a way she’d never felt except under water.

And then, like being spit out by a strong tide, Stumpy found herself tumbling, end over end, over a dry and dusty ground, the egg within an egg within sight and out of reach.

She was hot, a hot she’d never felt before, and the ground shook with a rhythmic regularity. When she finally settled, egg still in view, she craned her neck as far as it would go to meet an eye the size of her body.

“What are you?” it said, its voice as deep as anything Stumpy had ever heard.

“What am I?” she scrambled to get the egg, to protect it from the enormous feet everywhere around her.

“What are you?”

TO BE CONTINUED

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Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   
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Her Cousin Much Removed
The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.
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