Why Are There No Penguins at the South Pole?

I lift my head and glance at the two red hats hanging on the headboard.Another Christmas, and still no snow.A cold wind blows tirelessly at the window, like the whooshing of a frisbee thrown from above.All of this is enough to banish any desire to go outside.

Recently, I’ve been dreaming about a frisbee-throwing man.He has a full beard and stands on top of a snowy mountain, throwing frisbees.There’s a person sitting on each frisbee.After throwing me outward, he seems struck by some thought and slides down to the valley floor, where he stoops down and helps me up from where I’m sitting paralyzed.Then he lifts me onto his back and returns to the top of the mountain.Resting against his generous shoulder, I feel comfortable and cozy.I feel like everything can begin anew.

I decide to go out, since staying home would only make me feel more out of sorts.As usual, the streets are crammed with people.A gaggle of youths, probably students, stand smoking by the curb.Their eyes are full of wistful care, as if they each had a special someone in their hearts.A pair of lovers in red Santa hats ask me to take their picture, but I refuse.The red hats produce a kind of visceral disgust in me.I feel their suspicious gaze drilling into my back.I speed up, and at the street corner I crash headlong into a penguin.Just as I wonder if I’m dreaming, I see behind the toy penguin a young boy, remote control in hand.He trips and falls.I help him up, brushing away the bits of snow that have stuck to him.

“Thanks, uncle.” His cheeks are rosy, and his eyes are like clear ice.If he appeared in my dreams, would the frisbee man have the heart to throw him into that wretched valley?

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“Why are there no penguins at the North Pole?”

“I imagine it’s because penguins don’t like polar bears.”

“If we bring some penguins from the South Pole to the North Pole, do you think they would survive?”

“Well, polar bears are so fierce, so they would be pretty scared, wouldn’t they?”

I can force myself not to think of his face, his soft smile, his warmth;but that conversation keeps replaying unexpectedly in my ears.Back then,no matter how childish my questions were, he answered them earnestly.But gradually, it all changed.

“Why are there no penguins at the North Pole?” Now that we had lived together for three years, I purposely tested the question out again.

“You’d know if you looked online.”

“If we bring some penguins from the South Pole to the North Pole, do you think they would survive?”

“Come on, can’t you be more mature? What’s the point of asking all these questions?”

Alright, I’ll be more mature.I won’t ever ask such foolish questions again.Every day when I got home from work, I cooked, did the laundry, and cleaned the house.But despite all this, he didn’t love me one bit more.

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That day I forgot to bring my keys,so I went to his workplace to get them.Through his office window,I saw a charming young man.I followed his gaze as it followed the other man.Then his eyes swept over me, and he stared blankly for several seconds before lowering his eyes and flicking them back to mine.In the split second that he started rising from his seat to walk over, realization dawned upon me.

I had seen this man’s picture inhis phone before.That inexplicable overtime, those muffled bathroom phone calls, the refrain of “I’m too tired today”—it all dispersed like fog before the intensity of his gaze, which only outlined what it tried to conceal.

Playing dumb, I took the keys from him and left.

“Why didn’t you call me before you came?”

“Your phone was off.” I even looked back at him and smiled as I replied.

Like every naive lover, I believed that once we were together, we would always be together.I never imagined such a vulgar cliché happening to me,and with such ease.

“You promised me three things.Do you still remember?”

“I remember.”

“Then tell me, what are those three things?”

“I’m too tired today.I’m blanking right now.”

Crestfallen, I started crying.I cried so loudly I even woke up the old man next door.I heard a saucer breaking in the other room.Was that his way of protest? I didn’t know.I only knew that no matter how he tried to console me,I couldn’t stop crying.

He went out first thing the next morning, leaving a brief note.He said that he only remembered two things:The first was promising to live with me, and the other was going to the South Pole to ski and see the penguins.“We can’t go to the South Pole for the time being, so how about we go skiing this weekend for Christmas? Haven’t you always wanted to go skiing?”

His words were so natural, as if nothing had happened at all.

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“I’ll deal with it, I’ll find a way.”

He was on the phone in the bathroom again.I heard him repeat those words over and over.It looked like my plan was taking effect.I had gone through his phone and found the other man’s phone number, calling him daily at 2 in the morning and chuckling darkly a few times.I put his phone number and photo on every major social media channel and adult site, and printed several hundreds of personal ads about him and posted them along streets near their company.

“Who were you calling? Took you long enough.”

“There was an issue with one of our projects.”

He knew how to keep his composure—let’s see how long he could keep me in the dark.

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Then the day arrived.

Wearing red Santa hats, we stood on a mountaintop deep in artificial snow.Just as we were getting ready to ski down, he blurted out, “You go ahead! I’m not ready yet, I’m still a bit scared.” I didn’t think much of it, mouthing the cues the instructor had just emphasized: skis shoulderwidth, torso leaning forward, ski poles hanging naturally, balance the force from each leg.But then, with an almost divine sense of premonition, I swiveled my head back around to look at him,and saw him holding a stiff arm in mid-air.

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“I just wanted…”

In that split second, that feeling of realization descended once more.“I’ll find a way to deal with it.” So this was the plan he had come up with: manufacturing an accident!He must have spent a long time thinking through the details.Maybe it was that minx’s idea? Taking a congested route on purpose so that the ski resort would be almost closed by the time we got there—this was to make sure there wouldn’t be too many people here,right?

“I just wanted…” A surge of hot fury engulfed my heart.Not waiting to hear the second half of his sentence, I seized the moment and gave a vicious yank to his outstretched arm.He slid forward, quickly losing his balance and dropping his ski poles.I watched him roll toward the fence like a snowball.He crashed into a post, and from a distance, I saw a small patch of red start to grow around him.

I started to scream.Then I saw the instructor with his full beard, holding several frisbee-like dishes.I don’t know why, but in that moment all I could think about was what they could possibly be used for.I even think I might have asked him that out loud.

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“I just wanted…” I haven’t stopped thinking about what the other half of his unfinished sentence might have been.

“I just wanted to give you a scare.”

“I just wanted to give you a little push.It looked like you were also having a hard time of it.”

“I just wanted to brush some snow out of your hair.”

No, it couldn’t have been any of those things.Otherwise, how couldthe events leading up to that moment be explained? Rest assured, afterward I asked many of our friends about his relationship with that man, and all of them flatly denied it.But it is all clear to me; they were only trying to spare me another blow.The other man left the company after he died—that said it all.

The wind is picking up, dispersing any last shreds of holiday cheer from the streetscape.People have turned up their collars, pulling their heads into their necks like penguins.When I get home, I look up why there are no penguins at the North Pole.The internet tells me that there in fact used to be penguins there, but that humans had carelessly hunted them to extinction.There is absolutely no poetry to this answer, but it was just as he told me: Where are you expecting to find so much poetry in the world?

But I must keep going.The third thing that he couldn’t remember, out of the three things he promised me before we got married, was precisely the one he had no way of fulfilling: “We must stay together for the rest of our lives.”As he was sliding wretchedly down the slope after I yanked him, I tried to grab him, but I only caught hold of his hat.Our hats at least can be together for a lifetime, right? I lift my head and glance at the two red hats hanging on the headboard.