Thoughtless in Sea Waddle

I had only one portion of immortality left. After I sold that last piece, I was finally allowed to die. I had lived too long to be bested by the last potion of immortality. I opened the door to a small family run pizza parlor.

            “Who are you?” The owner asked. His name tag claimed that his name was Brandon.

            “I’m here to offer you the deal of eternity.” I went over my entire spiel about how living forever would allow him to do so much. He’d be able to do plenty of things that no other human ever got to do.

            “Yes, but what happens when my family dies? Then I will just be by myself. That hardly seems like fun.”

            “Yes, but you can always get new families,” I said clearly.

            “I don’t want another family. I just want to keep this family fed.” Brandon gestured to his three children and his wife behind the counter. As much as I wanted to argue with him, he was right. I continued looking for one last person to bestow the curse of immortality onto, but each of them had the same idea. I don’t want to live forever, because of my family.

            I traveled to both ends of the earth, finally finding myself in the cold grasp of Antarctica. There was not a soul left on the Earth to take my potion, so in my exhaustion, I collapsed in the snow. I couldn’t die, but I could still feel the bite of the cold. If I couldn’t die, then I might as well pretend. I lied motionless as snow covered me for years.

            Until one day, I felt some warmth and pressure on my chest. I sat up in the snow, and there was a penguin sitting on my chest with an egg between his legs. Clearly, he was cold, because I couldn’t feel my entire body. The penguin was covered in a thick layer of frost, but he was concentrating hard on the egg. I attempted to move, but the penguin remained planted exactly where he was. Perhaps, he had felt the extra warmth of my body through the snow.

            I was plastered there, forced to watch a father keep his future kid alive. We struggled together through the snow and cold. “Yeah Mr. Bowtie. I was cursed with immortality and this is where I ended up.” Though I talked to the penguin, he never talked back. He just remained hunched over staring at the egg.

            Then in one moment, the Antarctic wind blew extra hard, causing the penguin to shift precariously. He attempted to right himself, but the egg fell from the mound of snow. Despite the fact that I hadn’t moved for a long time, I quickly caught the eggs before it could hit the icy ground and placed it back under the penguin.

            As I looked closer, I saw that the harsh cold had actually cracked the egg. Without really thinking about it, I poured the last remaining portion of immortality onto the egg, causing it to fuse back together. The distant look in the penguin father’s eyes melted away, and he situated himself back over the egg.

            Finally, after all the time I was allowed to die.