Picking up Penguins

 

The zookeeper grabbed a small fish from the pile in the ice-tray. He propped the fish’s mouth open. The small creature appeared to be surprised, but it probably wasn’t as it had no knowledge of its current predicament, or any other predicament, or, for that matter, anything, as it was dead. The zookeeper then pushed the white circular disc gently into the mackerel’s gaping mouth so that it was just visible. Were the fish alive, which it confirmedly wasn’t, it would have protested against this violation. However it made no move of any kind as it unknowingly mouthed the zookeeper’s finger and accepted the pill. The medicine had no effect on the mackerel. This could be because the pill was nothing more than sugar. It could also have been because the fish was, as previously stated, dead.

The zookeeper did not worry about this. He just threw it into a second tray and restarted the process, grabbing another fish and preparing it in the same way. He repeated the routine over and over until each fish had a white semi-circle protruding from their mouth, making sure they were clearly visible.

The zookeeper carried the stainless steel cemetery from the prep room through to a large enclosure with a couple of pools. One pool was shallow, the other one was deep and both were surrounded by rocks. The enclosure was a façade. The rocks were imposters. They were plastic, shaped and painted to mimic the real thing. Likewise the roof was painted to represent the sky and the floor was painted white for snow. All these props and paintings were for the benefit of the inhabitants. They were to represent their natural environment and ensure they were happy.

These penguins had, however, been in no way happy and the external imagery did nothing but remind them of a better place. At least it was a reminder for the few who knew the wonders of their indigenous territory. Most of the penguins were born in captivity and were blisslessly ignorant of the sublimity of the outside world. They were no less unhappy than the formerly wild penguins.

Nobody could have guessed, penguins get depressed.

There were two other reasons behind the penguin’s depression. First was the boredom of living in one room for their entire lives. The un-ending repetition of days left nothing to look forward to except the occasional feeding. It was not uncommon for the birds to spend days simply standing still, sometimes facing one of the sky blue walls. This was often mistaken by the staff as a sign of artistic appreciation and encouraged them to paint more environmental artworks for other animals in other enclosures. This gave the other animals as little enjoyment as it did the penguins. The reason they stared at the walls was in fact that it was the only privacy the birds had from the constant staring faces. The birds didn’t understand why these humans enjoyed watching such a dull routine. They must gain some kind of twisted satisfaction from observing animal’s spirits gradually diminish, and diminish in spirit was just about all they did here. The boredom slowly filtered out any hope as they became resigned to belittled expectations. Their colouring slowly became symbolic of their life; monotonous.

The second reason they were all unhappy was that none of them knew of their genetic inability to fly; another situation where their ignorance of the world outside their enclosure was the source of their problem. If they had known they were not birds of flight the lack of ability would not have bothered them nearly as much. But they were stuck with the unfortunate instinctual idea that their wings were meant to be used for flying and didn’t know any better. Sometimes the weightless ease of motion they felt underwater could be exhilarating, but it was a poor substitute for flight.

So the penguins were depressed and this was a problem for the zookeepers. There was a massive increase in the decrease of movement of the birds. Some of the penguins would lie on their bellies and stay static for days on end, refusing to eat, drink, or swim. The zoo decided to bring in an animal therapist to determine what was wrong with the penguins. After a lot of loud squawking and splashing around, which made the penguins uncomfortable, he declared that they were in fact severely depressed and prescribed them some medication. The zoo instantly began to combine the anti-depressants with the penguin’s normal diet. The drugs worked wonders and the penguins began to show signs of recovery. They were walking around, flapping their wings, and most impressively, swimming again. Life was improving in the penguin enclosure.

Nobody could have guessed that anti-depressants work on penguins.

However the medication was not cheap and the zoo, which was cheap, quickly decided it was a cost they couldn’t afford. The penguins spiralled back into depression, even worse than they had been. They had grown accustomed to their psychological crutch. They began to fight amongst themselves, stopped swimming and returned to staring at the wall in despair. The biggest worry however was that the penguins now refused to eat fish without a side order of joy. So a solution was proposed and the zoo began using sugar-pills, in the hope that it would trick the birds into eating.

It did.

Therefore when the zookeeper entered with a tray of mackerel the penguins all flocked towards him, beaks raised eagerly to the fake sky as they squawked in anticipation. He watched closely as they formed an orderly queue and fidgeted in readiness of their turn. Before any penguin accepted a fish they would tilt their heads to ascertain their medication was there.

Nobody could have guessed that placebos work on penguins.