SATIRE|MEMOIR

To Be a Young Penguin in Love: Part II

A Club Penguin story

For the beginning of this Club Penguin love saga, click here.

We were two penguins in love.

Without penguin genitalia, Cutie2145 and I agreed to take it slow. We were in an asexual partnership. Even without that sexual component to our relationship, we grew to love each other all the same. Dances in the nightclub turned into dates in the pizza shop and pizza dates turned into raucous races down snow-covered hills. She felt like the penguin for me.

We would spend countless hours together. As we grew closer our conversations only stretched deeper into the night. We would return home from drunken nights on the town and just lie in my igloo and talk about life. I’d gather wood for a fire as she made penguin hot cocoa.

As time went on, though, it began to feel as though something was amiss. Our all-night penguin dance parties had lost some of their magic. She was the same penguin I’d fallen in love with, but somehow the passion was no longer there. Uncomfortable pauses began to punctuate more and more of our conversations. We sought penguin couple’s therapy. For a bit, it actually seemed like it was helping.

Eventually, she picked up a job at the Puffle store. We didn’t need the extra coins but she said that she just “needed to spend more time out of the igloo.” I fell head first into a crippling Mancala addiction in the book room of the local coffee shop. Even though we lived in the same igloo, Cutie2145 and I started to see less of each other. We had begun living separate lives. We’d grown into different penguins.

“Do you think there’s a meaning to all of this?” I said one night, emerging from an airy silence and looking up at the ceiling of the snow-hut we’d called home for so long.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“To life... on this island… do you think there’s something more?”

“Are you asking if I believe in penguin God?”

“No — just if — nevermind. Forget I said anything,” I said, turning off the light. I didn’t have the heart to be direct. But looking back, I think she knew then what I was asking. An unspoken tension had surfaced in our penguin lives, but we were both still afraid to admit it.

The next day in the book room, I saw an unfamiliar face walk in. From her pig tales to the floral brown dress that cascaded nearly down to her big orange flippers, I could hardly take my eyes off her. From the way she perused that bookshelf, I could tell she was no ordinary penguin.

“I’ve read that one,” I said, approaching from behind. I tried to keep my greeting subtle, but she jerked so suddenly that she dropped the book she had grabbed.

“Oh — Harry Plopper and the Order of the Penguin?”

“It stretches on a little bit in the middle, but it has a really great ending,” I explained, sounding as thoughtful as I could manage.

“My name’s Keelybop904,” she said, gently removing her bangs hanging over her bulbous, white penguin eyes.

“I’m Benguin69,” I replied smoothly.

“You should chat me sometime,” she responded with something that looked almost like a wink. As time went on, I found myself spending more and more time in that coffee shop with Keelybop904. Eventually, we began to grow feelings for each other. It got to the point where I was spending every spare minute of my time with this new love interest of mine.

I still went home to my igloo each night, but I began to live for those coffee shop visits. We’d read and drink lattes and talk about love and life and penguin politics. She was the most fascinating penguin I’d ever met. And then one day, surrounded by the relaxing fumes of roasting coffee beans and lying on the shop floor, I decided to tell her about my feelings for her.

As soon as the chatbubble appeared, she looked at me with those vacant white penguin eyes that I’d slowly grown to love. For a moment, I was sure I’d made a mistake. But she leaned in and kissed me. As I opened my eyes again, though, I saw my penguin wife had entered the shop, pink curls in her hair and a puffle at her side.

“I knew it!”

“Wait — ” I tried to explain myself.

“Don’t even try it! When Denise told me you were seeing another penguin I didn’t want to believe it but I — I — ”

“Honey, it’s not like that!”

“I’m disgusted!” she stormed from the coffee shop and from my life. By the time I’d gotten back to the igloo, she’d already cleared out her room. I tried to call her, but she wouldn’t pick up. The next I heard from her, I was leaving the clothing store when a penguin in a suit and tie came up to me.

“Are you Benguin69?” he asked.

“Yes?”

“You’ve been served,” he said, handing me divorce papers and turning back from whence he’d come.

Keelybop and I continued seeing each other, but it was hard for me to shake the feeling that I’d failed. All of that time Cutie2145 and I had spent together — all of those happy memories and all of those painful ones — could it really be for nothing? Did we enter each other’s lives as just a fleeting dance of penguin passion? Did we grow to care about each other just to drift apart on separate icebergs of life?

Penguin love is hard.

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