Here’s What Happens When You Get A Writing Prompt From Twitter
Wiping snow off of my goggles, I looked down at the crack in the rock. My guide, Matilda, was gesturing towards it eagerly, but I did not know why.
“Look inside,” she said. I shifted my weight in the snow and tried to look her in the eyes. Blue. Or maybe brown? It was hard to tell. We could fall in love, I thought about telling her, if you would look at me and talk to me and ignore these stupid cracks in the rocks.
She continued to ignore me and gently stuck her hand inside of the opening. I broke my gaze and watched as she removed what appeared to be an egg-shaped object.
“It’s an egg,” she said. I nodded. I knew it.
Matilda removed some kind of device from her backpack. It was a small-sized cylinder with a clear window in the middle, and two metal end-caps. Matilda slid one of the end caps off and placed the egg inside. She slid the end cap back on with a click and placed the egg back into her backpack.
We headed back to the base camp.
“It’s quite an astonishing find,” Shields had started, “especially for your first day.”
I was rather proud of it, despite having just watched Matilda do it.
“Did you find it, or…”
“Matilda found it,” I stated. “I know how to follow the rules.”
Rule number one: don’t touch anything.
Shields accepted this. “Right answer.” He handed me a clipboard, which contained a paper full of legalese. “Standard non-disclosure agreement,” he explained. “Also states that you, as an observer, had absolutely no contact with the object you found during your ‘nature walk.’”
I grabbed the clipboard and looked it over. Shields slid me a pen.
“Seems like a lot of hoops to jump through for just an egg.” The ground trembled and the pen fell to the floor. Shields retrieved it and handed it to me.
“Just a tremor,” he explained. “Happens a lot out here.”
I scrawled my name at the bottom of the NDA, noting that I was still allowed to discuss my observances with my employer. As per your previous contract, it stated. “What sort of egg was it, anyway?”
“You’ll find out in due time,” he said. “Come, let’s take you to your quarters.”
“Don’t you ever wonder what it is we’re collecting?” I posited this question to Matilda as she stuffed a cylinder into her backpack.
“I’m collecting them,” she corrected, “you’re just observing.”
“But we’ve been at this for a month and nobody’s told me anything.”
She looked directly at me with those blue or brown eyes and asked if I was getting sick of her. I told her I was actually getting sick of her and we laughed. This was our thing now.
Matilda assured me that yes she knew exactly what we were collecting and that I would be quite let down when I found out. But still I wondered. “Why the secrecy?”
There was an odd tremor and Matilda dropped her pack to the ground. She sighed, retrieved her backpack, and swung it around to her back. “It’s like this,” she said. She started counting off on her fingers. “Your company sent you here to work with me. I work for Shields. Shields works for the government, and the government wants these eggs. So the only people that can know about the eggs,” she wiggled her fingers, “are the four of us.”
“Don’t you mean ‘three of us and the government’?”
She laughed. “Yeah, something like that.” She touched me on the arm. “Probably your company, too.” We awkwardly didn’t speak the rest of the way back to base.
Shields had called me into his office again. “It’s finally time,” he gestured to a small video screen on his desk, which was turned to face himself. “Close the door behind you.”
I closed the door behind me quietly, careful not to alert the other researchers at the base, as though I was on a secret mission. The ground slightly trembled again. Shields motioned towards a chair and I took a seat in front of the video screen.
“Do you know what I’m about to show you?” Shields asked.
“I think so, sir, but I don’t think that’s really appropriate to show in the workplace.”
Shields ignored my joke. “The eggs are hatching.” He placed his hand on top of the monitor. “Before I show you, please know that this is only for a select few staff members to know. The only reason you were brought here is to observe, and to report this to your superiors.”
“Of course,” I said.
Shields swiveled the screen around, and on the screen there was something.
“What is that?” I asked.
“It’s a penguin,” he said. “The first hatched completely in isolation.”
“There’s no way that can be correct,” I said.
“It was hatched inside a completely soundproof room, in a Faraday cage, with no light or any other stimuli touching it.” He tapped the screen like it meant something. “It was completely isolated.”
I didn’t bother to ask how they could have known that the egg hatched because the next thing that happened was insane.
“It fucking flew,” I shouted at Matilda as I burst into her room.
“What?”
“The penguin. It flew.”
Matilda shook her head. “Penguins can’t fly.”
“I know that, and you know that, but that goddamn flying penguin doesn’t know that!”
I couldn’t calm down. It had shaken me to my core. A flying penguin? How the hell?
“Why would a penguin fly?” she asked me.
“How should I know? You’re the one that found it,” I shot back. “I have documentation to that effect!”
Matilda stormed out of the room and towards Shields’ office. I tried to stop her, but it was too late.
She grabbed Shields by the neck. “A flying penguin?” she asked, angrily. “How the hell?!”
Shields tried to calmly explain as best as he could how he had basically grown the penguin inside of a magic box that prevented light and sound and wishes and dreams from getting to the penguin, or whatever he tried to explain to me before, and also explained to her in scientific language how they found out how the egg hatched inside the chamber.
“What?” I asked. “Don’t worry about it,” they both said. The ground shook again, harder this time, as the information sank in.
“So what would the government want with flying penguins?” Matilda asked.
Shields sighed. He sat down at his desk and started rifling through the papers on it.
“Penguins should not be able to fly,” he stated. Matilda and I both agreed with this.
“I mean, scientifically,” Shields explained. “It’s physically impossible for a penguin to fly, given their shape and whatnot.”
“Right,” Matilda added. I nodded because I supposed he was correct.
“Well, the government has long suspected that penguins…actually can fly, they just choose not to.”
Matilda and I let that sink in.
“That’s stupid,” I said.
“By the way,” Shields pointed at me, “I forgot to mention that you’re fired.”
I slumped into a chair. This was the worst.
“So,” he continued, “we figured the penguins must be communicating with some kind of sound, or pheromone, or signal, telling the penguins not to fly. So we kind of…raised a bunch of penguins out here in isolation.”
“But why?” Matilda continued to prod. And this was when I stepped in.
“My company makes weapons,” I offered. There was silence.
“So…we could use the penguin tech to make deadlier weapons?” I explained.
“Exactly,” said Shields. He typed a few keys onto his keyboard and showed us a different scene on his monitor. An entire room full of young penguins, hovering above the ground, not a care in the world, not knowing that they would lead to global war.
“You’re a bastard, Shields,” said Matilda. Or at least she tried to, but the ground had begun to shake. No, to quake.
It was hard to make out exactly what was going on as we opened the door to the office. There was a flurry of motion, researchers running around looking for shelter.
And suddenly, a male researcher tripped and fell on the ground. Suddenly a sea of black and white objects, coming from the ground, or was it from outside, enveloped his body, the muffled screams drowned out by the alarms blaring, a mist of blood and flesh mixing into the icy cold air.
And then we looked, and saw one, standing still, on the ground, its murderous black eyes set across its main weapon, its beak, as he rotated towards us.
“PENGUINS!” said the researcher and it was his last word.
They had found us.
Shields, Matilda, and I raced through the facility amidst a wave of death. The penguins had come and maybe they would not stop until we were all dead. We had stolen from them. Their secrets. Their children.
They followed us. We made our way to the hatchery.
The wave of penguins started towards Matilda. Shields jumped in front.
“I did this!!” He screamed. He ran to the hatchery and flung the door wide open. He ran inside, among the flying penguins.
The entire mass of deathbirds swarmed him. We could hear the tearing of flesh, the chirping, the screams. We could see him turn from an entire person to bone, as a select few babies pecked what remaining meat they could find.
And in a few moments, all of the flying penguins lowered themselves to the ground.
Now calm, they all walked silently out of the facility.
Matilda and I embraced.
I tried to lighten the mood.
“Matilda,” I started. “What do penguins eat for lunch?”
“What?”
“Ice burgers.”
“I hate you.”
