Pecky the Martry

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In the mist of imagination, the idea came to Ted Hughes in a form of a mysterious fox.

But in my imagination, it was a pink penguin named 'Pecky'.

I would not have finished the story without you and your poem.

Thank you.

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      It was an usual sunny day in Snowville. The sun was hanging itself, alone, on the clear blue sky. It seemed that the clouds were not feeling well and might have taken a day-off.. Thus, it was one of the not many fine days in a year round. The children, looking chubby in their big overcoats, were playing on the white yard which was covered with 10-12 inches of snow flakes. Their mothers were busy gathering bits of information of the neighbourhood, which seemed nonsense since there were only thirty families in Snowville and there were not that many shocking scandals to gossip about.

      The husbands, tired of listening to their big-mouth ladies, swift off the house when they met the chance. Some nice husbands went to join their children, helping them defeat their enemies in a war of snow balls. The rest of them went up to the shore to hunt some seals for dinner.

      This was how people in Snowville lived for more than a hundred years. They lived simply but happily, safe in the embrace of Mother Nature. The only technology they accepted was printing. The villages loved reading. Books of all genres could be found in the village and one villager owned more than 10 different books in average. The most popular book was the Bible, which each family had one copy for each of their rooms. The villagers read when they were not working. They also read after having their meals and before they went to bed. The only thing that kept them from their habit of reading was feeding penguins. The people of Snowville loved penguins more than life itself.

      In Snowville, they had been taming penguins as pets for more than a centuries, as early as their ancestors founded the village. There was no record of how it began but it was passed from generation to generation. Penguin had become a sacred animal, the servant of God, and appeared in many legend of the village. Thus, it became spiritually important to the people of Snowville, comparable to cow to the Hindus and deer to the Japanese in old cities like Nara or Kyoto.

      For that reason, the penguins of Snowville enjoyed their safety in the protection of the villagers and had grown hugely in number. At that time, there were more than one thousand penguins in the area, 10 times the number of the villagers. This would soon become a major problem when the penguin hunters raided the village in search of baby penguin fur, the lavish material for making a luxurious handbag of ladies in the cities of fashion like Milan or Paris.

      Back to the fine sunny day which all the villagers were enjoying the good weather, a baby penguin was born to the Penguin Queen. She was named 'Pecky'. The newborn penguin was distinguished from other baby penguins in her flock because she had pink fur, smooth and silky, and Pecky knew that she was born different since the minute she took her first birth on earth. She avoided any company of other penguins, which she considered too plain and normal, and always tottered beside her mother with beak pointing up high, she never responded to any greeting of other penguins. At first, the flock laughed at the funny arrogant manner of the little penguin and thought she was just acting too precociously and that she would adjusted herself to the flock soon. However, after seven days, the 'princess' was ignored by all the penguin in the flock for they could not stand her arrogance any longer.

      On the eighth day of her life, Pecky sneaked out of flock and walked alone along the seashore. She was bored and annoyed of her life among her penguin family. All the other penguins only cared about their survival, they woke up, they hunted, they slept, and woke up again to repeat the routine of the day before. Pecky knew that she was born for something more important, something great and magnificent that no penguin in the flock could achieve or even imagine. However, the little penguin did not know what that 'something great' was. She walked and walked, trying to think what meaning of her life was. Suddenly, her tiny feet tripped over something in the sand and fell.

      Pecky stood up, frustrated, and started to clean the sand off her beautiful fur. She looked around to find the thing that made her trip over and found something her mother called 'Magazine' half-hidden in the sand. She picked it up and thought of the way she could destroy it in order to take her revenge. She hold 'Magazine' at each side with her tiny penguin wings, wishing to tear it into two. Then she noticed some flat women dressing in unfamiliar clothes on a flat side of 'Magazine'. She did not know what it was but she had fallen in love with those strange garments already. They did not look like what the villagers wore and she supposed that it was because the flat women in 'Magazine' had to be something different, and that something different had to be that 'something great' she had been looking for. She grabbed 'Magazine' with her wings and rushed home to ask her mother what it was.

      The Penguin Queen was, like her daughter, also different from other penguins in the flock. Instead of black feathers, the Queen had blood-red shiny feather that made her stood out of the rest. However, she never acted as if she were any higher than other penguins in her flock; she hunted, she danced, and slept like others did. The flock never saw her as their respectable and fearful mistress but as the mother of their family. Unfortunately, all the good deeds of the Queen never passed to her daughter who had been snobbish since the day she was born. The Queen was worried about the time when Pecky succeeded her throne and became the new Queen of the penguins. She hoped there would not be such chaos like what happened when her grand grand mother ruled.

      The Queen was stocking the fish she had hunted this morning when Pecky showed up. The little penguin was exhausted from tottering quickly a long way from the shore. She gave her mother a tight hug with her little penguin wings then showed 'Magazine' she had found.

      The Queen recognised from the cover that it was what the villagers called 'Fashion Magazine' in which they put photos of women in strange clothes. She never saw any of the outfits in 'Magazine' be worn by any of the villagers and supposed that her neighbours were clever enough to not follow the footsteps of those stupid 'civilized' people in cities. She wondered why her daughter was so excited about 'Magazine'. She got shocked when Pecky said that she wanted to be like those women in 'Magazine', she wanted to be a model.

      Pecky insisted that she wanted to be a model no matter how hard the Queen and all her penguin nannies convinced her to forget about the idea. The belief that she was born for 'something great' dominated over her reason and she would never accept the idea that she was to be just an ordinary penguin. From that day, dawn until night, Pecky practiced every gesture and posture of every model in 'Magazine', dreaming that one day when the opportunity came she would be more than ready to grab the chance and became a real model. This annoyed her mother very much. After 3 days, the mother and daughter got into a big fight. Pecky was all alone and, no doubt, lost to her mother, who had all penguins in the flock as her backup. She was given two choices; gave up her 'stupid dream' to become a model and live a 'suitable' penguin life; or pursued her dream but had to leave the flock.

      The little penguin burst into tears, begging her mother to try to understand her. She said she could not give up her dream because she felt that her life was 'destined' this way but she could not leave her flock either because she loved them. The Queen felt pity for her little daughter but she had to be strict in order to maintain 'law and order' in the flock, she had to force her daughter to choose. Poor Pecky had no other choice. She never wished to leave her family, but the angry little penguin was so disappointed with how her family she loved treated her. Finally, Pecky decided to turn back against them and to pursue her dream on her own. She hugged 'Magazine' tight in her embrace and started walking away. The Queen fell on her knees when Pecky gave her the last glance and left. She cried so loud as if to ask her daughter to come back. But Pecky never returned.

      Pecky reached the village of snow late that night. She had been crying since the minute she left her flock and she hardly had any tear left to cry. The young penguin walked, walked, and walked, and tripped over something that she fell into cold snow. Her Bible, 'Magazine', fell open beside her. She was about to pick it up when she noticed a picture of beautiful handbag made of the material she was familiar with. It was the soft fur of baby penguin, just like what she had. Pecky trembled with fear.

      Now she knew what a penguin like her was supposed to be, a luxurious bag of a model on the catwalk. She laughed at her own stupidity that a penguin would someday become a model. Maybe this was what the God wanted her to do, to sacrifice herself for the sake of beauty. She was scared, but at that time she had nothing else to lose. She had to continue her path of martyrdom, and soon a penguin like her would become a saint just like Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

      Pecky took a deep breath and started to walk towards the 'sanctuary' to finish her sacred journey. She stopped in front of an old wooden house with a worn-out wooded sign above the door frame, written 'Martha's: Clothes and Accessories'. She took another deep breath and knocked the door.

      An old women opened the door, slowly, and was amazed to see her, a penguin with point-up beak. Pecky offered the woman her soft fur to make a beautiful handbag. She showed the picture of the bag in 'Magazine' and guaranteed that it had to be one of the most beautiful bag using her fur. However, the women laughed softly and said that she did not need it. The generous penguin tried to convince the woman that she had the best fur of all penguins in her flock and that this pink fur was unique and would surely make a pretty handbag. Still, the old woman shook her head with faint smile and said that nobody there needed such a luxurious handbag because it was just extravagant and they all could live happily without it. She also told Pecky that the bag was not worth the sacrifice of her precious life. The penguin did not understand and insisted that the woman take her fur to make a bag. The old woman was tired of the annoying creature and slammed the door at her face.

      Pecky had nowhere else to go. Her flock did not need her and neither did the villagers. She started her journey again into the extensive ice field. She was tired and hopeless, and fell asleep of exhaustion.

      A bang of a gun woke Pecky up. The little penguin did not know a gun or a hunter but she knew she was scared. Her instinct told her that she should run away immediately, but she was too curious to listen to the warning and tottered quietly towards the direction of the sound. What Pecky saw were two men with something long and dark in their hands and a polar bear. One of them pointed that dark item at the bear, and BANG! The giant monster fell to the ground with a scary growl.

      Pecky was terrified and wished she could vanish to somewhere else. Suddenly, she spotted that the two men dressed differently from the villagers. All the people of Snowville dressed in thick overcoats made of whale skin, but the men were wearing a big coat decorated with something she thought to be baby seal's fur.

      The heart of the young penguin skipped the beat. She was sure that these men would more than pleased to take her fur because they dressed differently and would understand 'fashion'. She would become a beautiful bag on the catwalk soon. However, the loud noise of the dark item scared her so much, and hearing the long growl of the polar bear,    she was sure that it would hurt a lot. She tried to be brave, mumbling the holy phrase that she could remember from 'Magazine', saying 'Fashion always hurts'. She eventually decided not to lose the chance and not to be scared of death because after the painful moment God would take her to his home, Heaven. She stood up to face her death bravely like a saint, pointed her beak high, and started to totter to the Angels of Death.

      The hunters sensed that something was coming. They looked back and found a strange-looking  pink penguin walking to them. Without hesitation, one of the hunters pointed his gun at the little penguin.

      Pecky froze and closed her eyes. She thought of the glamorous bag she would become and the peaceful heaven she would be soon. She heard the bang and waited for her death. A few seconds before the bullet hit her chest she heard one of the men said.

      'This would make a delicious dish tonight!'

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Ps. Inspired by Ted Hughes, The Thought-Fox.

see also: http://www.richardwebster.net/tedhughes.html