Just Beyond the Very, Very Far North

by Dan Bar-el

  Duane, with his belly still flat upon the cave floor, and believing he’d received his fair share of thumps for the year, smiled feebly and said, “Agreed.”

  Then nothing happened.

  And then nothing continued to happen.

  Major Puff cleared his throat. “Ahem. Problem, Duane?”

  “I’m not sure,” said the polar bear.

  “You’re not sure?” asked the Major.

  Duane scrunched up his face and grunted as if he were trying to do a very difficult task. When he eventually stopped, he said, “I’m sure now. There is a problem. I’m stuck.”

  “You’re stuck?” confirmed the Major, for the sake of clarity.

  “Completely stuck,” Duane clarified further. “It really is a very cramped cave.”

  “Indeed,” replied the puffin, who was standing between a rock face and a polar bear’s snout. “Suggestions?”

  Duane’s head hurt… a lot. Bits of the cramped cave were wedged uncomfortably into his waistline. Dare I say that in his immobile condition, his derrière was left exposed to the open side of the cold cave. Taken in total, the whole affair was tiring Duane out. “I think it’s a wait-and-see situation, Major.”

  “Oh, how so?”

  “I need to lose a little weight in order to thin myself enough to back up. So I suggest… YAWN!… I suggest… a long nap for all. Mmmm-ah-phu-zzzzzz-snort.”

  And that was that for the polar bear. Like Twitch after a marathon baking spree, Duane was out cold. Major Puff applied a few gentle pokes to Duane’s snout, but it was clear that he was beyond reawakening and there was little the puffin could do to remedy it. So Major Puff took stock of his situation. Yes, the cave was considerably smaller than before. On the positive side, there was still air circulation, and with Duane now blocking most of the entrance, the cave was also insulated and warm. “Well, Major,” he said to himself, “we are under siege, as it were. Pinned down with nowhere to go. As a brave puffin warrior, our options have been reduced to one.” And so, Major Puff squatted down beside Duane and promptly joined him in an extended nap.

  * * *

  Three days later, Duane awoke feeling much, much better and slightly thinner, enough so that he could push backward and free himself from the cave’s grip. Major Puff took a leadership role and barked orders and encouragement during it all. “That’s right, lad! Keep wiggling! Don’t give up! Stiff upper lip, loose hips, and so on!”

  The fresh winter air that greeted them outside was cold and invigorating. They both gave a shake to loosen the accumulated cobwebs in their heads, after which Duane’s stomach wasted no time in getting his attention to point out that there were at least ten to twenty meals unaccounted for. Duane began walking back home, assuming that Major Puff was of the same mind. When he glanced to his side, he discovered it was not so. The puffin had not followed in his direction.

  Duane turned. “Are you not going back to your burrow?” he asked.

  Major Puff was still in the process of deciding. Unlike Duane, he did not sleep right through the previous days. At several points he awoke and had time to ponder things. He knew now that he didn’t have to migrate if he didn’t wish to, and he acknowledged to himself truthfully that he found migrations quite frightening. What didn’t sit well with him was the idea that his fears were in control of his life. The puffin didn’t want to not do something only because he was afraid of it. He was a Puff. He had standards to uphold.

  “Major?” asked Duane again, but this time in a tone of playful suspicion. “Are you thinking of going on your migration after all?”

  Major Puff gave Duane a confident smile, filled with youth and vigor. “Maybe once more for the thrill of it,” he replied with a wink. “See you in the spring, lad!” And with that, the puffin launched himself into the sky and flew away.

  Despite his stomach complaining impatiently, Duane watched his friend fly higher and higher until he disappeared among the clouds. Duane silently wished him a safe journey, admiring the puffin’s courage and his self-pride. There was no doubt that he would honor Major Puff’s wishes and not tell anyone about their encounter. He would allow the Major to explain about what had happened the day of his departure when he was ready to do so, after he returned.

  6. DUANE SHARES A BEAUTIFUL SNOWFALL WITH HANDSOME AND C.C.

  IT WAS A WINTER morning, still early in the season, in which Duane awoke to a snowfall like no other he’d ever seen. The day was windless. The flakes fell from the sky, large and leisurely, taking all the time in the world to float down and join their cousins below. Together they knitted an ever-thickening blanket, tucking in the Very, Very Far North for the frigid months ahead. Duane, who was no longer tucked in, or asleep or even sleepy, stood at the threshold of his cozy cave, staring out in silent contemplation, hypnotized by the graceful snowflake performance.

  It’s as if they are all dancing, he thought tenderly.

  Eventually, though, his serenity was overtaken by his curiosity, as was often the case. So, without a second thought, without a plan or a destination, Duane made his way outside and followed where his curiosity led. However, he did stop briefly to snap off a long icicle hanging at the cave’s mouth, to lick and slurp while he explored. He’d been saving that particular icicle for just such an occasion.

  Duane trundled down the mountainside, which soon led him past Handsome’s field. To his surprise and delight, there was the musk ox, also awake and standing in the middle of his clearing, just as mesmerized by the snowflakes as Duane had been earlier. He was looking up at the blue-gray, cloud-washed sky and smiling brightly. Duane thought Handsome appeared younger. Gone were the worry lines, the harsh creases that could mark his face whenever he gazed into the reflective pond during the unfrozen days or into his hand mirror during the others, because even while admiring his own beauty, Handsome would still be scrutinizing himself for blemishes and flaws.

  But there was none of that this morning. Handsome was under the snowfall’s disruptive spell, happy and carefree. He stuck his tongue out and waited for a flake to land. When one did, he swallowed it delicately, savoring it like a fruit sorbet or a tart at an afternoon tea. Then he stuck his tongue out again. Two flakes landed this time. Handsome giggled. Turning his head to try another location, he caught sight of Duane, icicle in hand, staring back at him from within the shimmering white curtain of falling snow. I will tell you truthfully that Handsome did not blush in embarrassment, nor did he attempt to overcompensate with a stern expression to show he was above scrutiny. No, he just continued smiling, meeting Duane’s gaze with the same giddy joyfulness. He sauntered over to Duane, who had resumed his icicle slurping. Seconds passed in mutual silence, and then, as if the circumstances made it clearly obvious what should happen next, they took off together to explore this winter dream, side by side.

  Traveling west, they reached the open lands. Flat and uneventful was how Duane would usually describe this area. His least interesting exploring happened here unless something bad came along, like a blizzard. But on this snowy morning, the ground was as smooth and blank as a painter’s canvas, an unquestionable invitation for creative expression. The polar bear and the musk ox separated, step by step, farther and farther away, a line of hoofprints heading diagonally in one direction, a line of paw prints heading diagonally in the other. And then Handsome turned, so Duane turned too. Their tracks curved inward. Put together, it looked like an incomplete heart. As Duane and Handsome came closer, they shared a laugh but did not stop advancing. Their snow prints crisscrossed, each now continuing in the opposite direction, but soon again curving and returning, then crisscrossing and leaving, over and over in tighter and tighter weaves until they braided themselves into a pair of friends together once more.

  When they turned around to observe their drawing, the heavy snowfall had all but erased it. There would be no record of this moment. It was fleeting and had passed. But they were not disappointed, because they too were living from one moment to the next. They went at it
again, this time separately.

  Handsome clomped out a giant outline of the hand mirror that Duane had once given him as a present. Duane tramped out a giant bowl of berries he wished to eat come spring. “Ah!” said Duane, and “Ho, ho!” said Handsome, in recognition of each other’s pictures.

  “Do what I do, Handsome,” Duane said.

  Handsome watched as Duane created a large half circle. At the top of it, Duane curved his steps away into a smaller half circle to the side, and then twisted the line again until it pointed upward. Handsome copied Duane’s drawing. When combined, the musk ox knew exactly what they drew. “That’s my head! Those are my horns!” he declared ecstatically. “Now it’s my turn!”

  Duane studied Handsome tracking out a very large oval into the snow. Once completed, Handsome delicately sidestepped to the right and marked out an identical oval. Then, demonstrating more musk ox agility than Duane would have thought possible, Handsome jumped into the middle of the oval, stomped a large dot, jumped sideways into the first oval, did exactly the same, and finally leaped out and away, leaving his finished picture for Duane to guess.

  “Wait, I know this. It’s… it’s…”

  “Yes, Duane?” Handsome encouraged.

  “Those are C.C.’s eyes!”

  “You are correct, sir,” said Handsome, most pleased.

  For Duane, thinking of C.C. while holding his now half-finished icicle pop brought up the fond memory of another winter get-together. It had taken place at the Fabulous Beach. It had involved him and C.C. and the invention of the delicious Snow Delight. The company of one friend had been lovely and tasty, he thought, and thus he now figured that adding a second friend to the mix could only double the pleasure.

  “How would you feel about a stroll to the shore of the Mainly Frozen Ocean next?” Duane casually asked Handsome, knowing that his friend was not always keen on exploration and might say no.

  Happily, however, the idea was well received. As noted, Handsome was possessed of a free, untroubled spirit that morning, so he had no reservations about heading there too.

  Off they went.

  The snow continued to fall steadily, abundantly and silently. Lost in his thoughts, Duane considered how much wiser it was for the clouds to release their snowflakes one by one, rather than dumping them all out in one go. Such an event would be frightening if you weren’t prepared for it. The sudden loud thump, the heavy weight, it would seem as if the sky had broken off and fallen. Fallen off of where? he then wondered. What is the sky attached to? What if after it breaks off, it leaves a big hole up there? What would you see through the hole? Duane smiled to himself. He was sure that these were all excellent questions to ask C.C., who always appreciated a challenge.

  At the Fabulous Beach, Duane peered out in the distance, toward the Shipwreck. By late morning, the relentless snow had softened its hard, dark outline, making it difficult to discern. Optimistically, Duane was hoping that C.C. would see them on the shore. If it had been a bright day, the sun might have caught a glint off her telescope, letting him know that she was watching. However, on this day, with the cloud layer so thick, the sun could barely manage even basic lighting, settling instead for a meager translucent glow. Duane gave the Shipwreck a big, sweeping wave of his arms just in case.

  “Who are you waving at, Duane the polar bear?”

  Once again, to Duane’s delight and surprise, and most definitely against all probability, there was C.C. perched nearby him. The snowy owl was living up to her description because a large pile of snow had accumulated on her head, resembling a too-large hat and indirectly suggesting that C.C. had been standing there, in one place, for some time.

  “I was waving at you,” Duane explained. “I thought you might be on the Shipwreck conducting experiments for the advancement of knowledge toward the benefit of all. But now I can see you are here.” Duane paused, mouth open, suddenly acknowledging the “against all probability” element I had just mentioned. “Why are you here, C.C.?”

  “I was waiting for you, Duane the polar bear.”

  “You knew that we were coming here?”

  “No, I saw that you were coming here,” C.C. explained, “while I was outside conducting experiments for the advancement of knowledge toward the benefit of all. I have six weather stations to check on, located in different areas that I visit. Each one measures atmospheric pressure, humidity, wind speed, air and ocean temperature, and precipitation. Once I gather the information, I apply formulae in order to make reasonable predictions.”

  “So you saw us coming here?” said Duane, repeating the only part of C.C.’s explanation that he understood.

  “Yes, while I was flying above.”

  Meanwhile, Handsome, who’d been standing there the whole time semi-listening, was looking very, very bored. He sighed loudly to make his feelings known.

  “It wasn’t difficult to see you,” C.C. continued, “having such very, very big eyes as I do.” C.C. said this last part while looking directly at Handsome. She said it as she says all things, in a matter-of-fact voice, without much emotion, but Duane wondered if she had seen Handsome’s snow drawing of her from the sky and was expressing her hurt by the depiction.

  Either way, Handsome was oblivious to it all. The snow was falling, he was happy, and the conversation, in his opinion, had gotten dull. “I wish to recite a poem that I’ve just composed in my head,” he announced. “I feel that the occasion calls for it.”

  Duane smiled approvingly, and both he and C.C. gave Handsome their attention.

  “Ahem… Oh, gentle snowflakes, soft as musk ox fur, each one an orb of beauty, on that we all concur.”

  “Good job,” said Duane. “I could hear the rhyming words.”

  “I don’t concur,” said C.C. “Snowflakes are not soft like fur; they are ice crystals. They are also not round in the slightest.”

  Handsome was annoyed. “I’m not finished yet. Allow me to complete my poem before you pounce on it with your criticism.”

  “I was liking it,” Duane threw in meekly.

  “Ahem!” Handsome cleared his throat much more forcibly. “Oh, spiky snowflake, with six to fourteen spokes—”

  “Always six,” C.C. interrupted.

  “SO unexpected your arrival, that greeted us when we awoke.”

  “Not for me,” countered C.C. “I calculated a heavy snowfall several days ago.”

  “AHEM!” yelled Handsome, forgoing any actual throat-clearing. “Oh, likely snowflake, bereft of color, starkly white—”

  “White is not the absence of color. From a physics point of view, one might say that white is actually all colors combined. When we consider wavelengths—”

  “Enough!” shouted Handsome, his nostrils flaring.

  Duane cringed in his discomfort. He knew that C.C. couldn’t help but point out errors when she heard them, but he also knew with certainty that Handsome’s feelings were hurt. This was not going to go well.

  “The problem with you, C.C.,” said Handsome in a voice dripping with disdain, “is that you have no romantic soul. You see only facts and figures, whereas I, and everyone else, see beauty and all that is sublime! Poetry is wasted on you.”

  C.C. stared back at Handsome for what felt to Duane like an eternity. He grew more and more fidgety. His plan to double the pleasure among friends was clearly in need of rethinking. Should it have been obvious to Duane that Handsome and C.C. were too different in who they were to share this experience? Was he supposed to keep his friendships separate? Duane felt guilty. He was reminded of his encounter with the weasel and his story about things not lasting, friendships not holding together. Was he responsible for Handsome’s current state and now C.C. having her feelings hurt? Were her feelings hurt? Duane found it hard to tell with C.C. what she was feeling. He had good reason. C.C. herself had a hard time figuring out what she was feeling.

  In that silence, C.C. was weighing Handsome’s words. Being a very clever snowy owl, even by the standard of other snowy o
wls, she understood what Handsome was saying. All things considered, she would have to agree with him. For her, facts and figures were important. But it was how he’d said it that she was grappling with. C.C. recognized the anger in Handsome’s face, but the tone of his voice was new. Objectively, it sounded as if Handsome thought less of her, as if she were not just different from him, but actually lacking something important in her character that made her broken. Was she incapable of seeing beauty in the world?

  The silence proved unbearable for Duane. He needed to step in right away. He opened his mouth, prepared to come to C.C.’s aid. He was too late.

  “It’s not true,” C.C. spoke suddenly, looking straight and confidently at Handsome. “You are wrong. I see beauty and understand poetry. And I can prove it too.”

  With a show of great conviction, C.C. pushed off into the snow-laden air and flew away. Two blinks of a musk ox and a polar bear later, she returned. “I should have mentioned to come meet me at the Shipwreck.”

  7. C.C. MAKES HER POINT

  C.C. LEFT A SECOND time, flying toward the blurry figure of the Shipwreck, surrounded and gripped by ice. Although Duane had either swam or walked to C.C.’s home countless times, Handsome had never made the journey. For one thing, C.C. had never extended a formal invitation, which was no trifling matter for Handsome. For another thing, swimming was always a big no-no grooming-wise for the musk ox, and walking across the Mainly Frozen Ocean in the winter suggested peril.

  “Will the ice support me?” he asked Duane.

  “I suppose so,” Duane replied. “You’re not much larger than I am. I could go first, and you could follow, up until any point that the ice cracks beneath me and I fall in the water, in which case you should probably stop following.”