his siberian thoughts crowded among themselves, exiled as usual, until the internal dog pile formed a pattern, a calling. there was sense and it spoke of a redeeming moment, potentially wrestling his family from tuxedo executioners. it would be a journey south. his father left him a felluca that had been sitting icy and still in a frozen lake. using his breath, he thawed his vessel loose and sparked the dilapidated satellite phone for the last sixteen minutes of its batterylife. several hundred penguins armed to the beak in soviet weaponry. so it was decided. the man scribbled for days aboard his ship, while the world met demands to cease certain luxuries. at least the ice melting ones like driving and cocktails. the estranged siberian landed a week after his empyrean vision, and presented each penguin with jobs to start and end in different months for the next five years. he explained that life was about good or bad timing, and that now was not the time for mutually assured destruction. not with so much to be done. one penguin swept twice a day. two penguins were to have a wedding interrupted by a third penguin. young penguins would get in trouble and be forgiven. a council of penguins were to renew the program for another five years. they crowded around him, contemplating each of their roles while he stood with a feeling of being the closest home he'd been in decades.