2397 words (9 minute read)

Penguins in the paste

        On this particular Christmas Eve, the Christmas Eve that our story takes place; Sualc Atnas was in a particularly vicious temper. He’d just awoken from a nightmare where all the children of the word had a Merry Christmas. It made him want to vomit.  

        “Gggyyyyaaaargh,” he moaned, as he stretched out his arms and the bones in his crooked old spine cracked and popped like dry twigs. He pushed back the covers and swung his thin, hairy legs over the side of the bed and on to the rickety wooden floorboards with a thud.

        His long, thin fingers wrapped against his knobbly knees and he yawned like a tired old dog, before rising to his feet and stomping to the dirty sink in the corner of the room, the floorboards creaking angrily beneath him as he went.

        Outside the wind whistled across the tundra and shook the walls, as an icy draft snuck in under the door and chilled his bare feet. Now this would have bothered a normal man. But Sualc Atnas is no normal man.

        He stared grumpily at the gaunt, tired reflection looking back at him from the cracked mirror on the wall. His thick, dark hair, which usually would be slicked back tight to his head, was standing on end. The result of a night of tossing and turning imagining happy children no doubt, he thought.

        The wind outside thundered by so powerfully that the mirror jumped around on the wall as though a steam train was powering past, as Sualc Atnas splashed a handful of icy water on his face, flattened his hair and picked a piece of turnip out of his beard.

        One more day he told himself, wiping the nightmare of joyous children from his brain, one more day and then you can rest. He closed his eyes and imagined the disappointed faces, the sighs of sadness from children all over the world, and his pointed prawn-like face broke in to a sadistic grin.

        “Just think,” he chuckled to himself, “just imagine their disappointment when they realize that their hero has let them down on the most important day of the year. Hah,” he barked, because his laugh was more like a yell or a howl of pain than an expression of joy.

        “And just think,” he went on, screwing his eyes up tight and balling his fists in excitement, “of the look on that fat old fool’s ridiculous round face when he realizes that I have outsmarted him once and for all!” He clutched his bony belly and rocked backwards, barking his painful laugh so loud that the room reverberated with the force of it.

        Suddenly there came a knock at the door, and Sualc Atnas glared at his reflection in the mirror. He was a curmudgeonly old creature at the best of times, but early mornings always put him in a foul temper, especially the morning of Christmas Eve. All of those horrible children, laughing and smiling and having fun. Stuffing their disgusting little faces with chocolate and sweets and all sorts of delicious foodstuffs. He grimaced at the joyous image that had conjured itself in his head, stomped over to his bedroom door and flung it open.

        “What is it?” he snapped.

        A pair of hairy knees stood shaking in front of him, and he craned his spindly neck out of the door and upwards to that he could see the face of his longest serving giant.

        “It… uh, it’s uh… it’s…”
        “For crying kids sake, spit it out Gunter!”

        “It’s… it’s the penguins sir, they’ve g…got at the paste again.”
        Sualc Atnas rubbed at his face in frustration and grabbed his dressing gown from a rickety stand in the corner.

        “Every. Damn. Year,” he snarled, pacing out of his room and slamming the door behind him.

        He marched quickly down the corridor with Gunter behind him, somehow struggling to keep up the pace even though he was four and a half times the size of his boss.

        “There’s going to be giants hanging from the rafters by the time I’m through with you lot,” Sualc Atnas growled in a menacing tone, cracking his knuckles as he walked.  

        “Yes sir,” Gunter responded, keeping his head low. Well, as low as a giant can, which really isn’t very low at all.

        Gunter had been with Sualc Atnas from the start. He had seen the enterprise grow and grow, from one angry, bitter old man in a shed furiously knitting ill-fitting items of clothing, to the enormous operation that it now was.

        In the beginning it had been just the two of them, sneaking into the odd village here and there with a few pairs of socks and some gone off fruit.

        But now their influence touched all four corners of the globe. Their workshop was five times the size of the one at the North Pole, which was due largely to the fact that everyone who worked there was a giant, but Gunter still thought it was impressive none the less.

        “Who’s rounding them up?” Sualc Atnas asked as they approached the huge, wooden doors at the entrance to where the paste was stored throughout the year.

        “Gertrude and Gromblerton,” mumbled Gunter.  

        As I am sure you will have noticed by now, all of the giants that work for Sualc Atnas have names that begin with the letter G. That was very observant of you, well done.

        Well, there is a reason for this. A not very well known reason but a not very well known reason is still a reason. What is the reason you ask? Well, I was just getting to that. Have a little patience.

        All giants whose names begin with the letter G are evil giants. Grindlesnorp the Gruesome, Gorbella the Grizzly, Gamblethomp the Greatatpooping. All terrible, awful giants.

        And there is a reason for this. You may know that, when the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke in to a thousand pieces, and that’s how fairies were created. But what you may not know is that when the first baby cried out for the first time, that cry also broke in to a thousand pieces. Those pieces caught in the wind and drifted far and wide, East and West, North and South, to every corner of the earth. Now most of these found their way unharmed and became the first giants. But one piece got caught on a vicious, southerly wind and drifted for years, being bashed and smashed, unable to find its way home.

        It became bitter and crooked, mean spirited and angry, and when it finally found its way to where it was supposed to be, it was so twisted and bent out of shape, so vicious and filled with spite, that all hope was lost from it.

        That giant went on to become one of the most terrible giants the world has ever seen, grinding up human bones to make his bread, destroying entire villages and shrouding the land in misery. And on his neck, he bore a hideous scar in the shape of the letter G.

        As such, a fearsome significance became attached to the letter G in the giant community, and every time a giant was born with ‘the mark’ somewhere on their body, their parents dismayed, for they knew their child was doomed to a life of evil and destruction.

        Anyway, I’ve digressed for long enough. You’ll be thinking ‘doesn’t this old bore ever get to the point’! So, back to our story…

        “Gertrude and Gromblerton,” Sualc Atnas muttered and angrily shook his head, “I’d bet all the hair on my chin that they were sleeping on the job. Again.”

        Sualc Atnas marched angrily towards the paste storage facility and thumped his hands in to the huge, wooden doors in front of him that was its entrance. They creaked open slowly and Sualc Atnas stepped inside.

        The paste storage facility was an enormous, cavernous space. The walls stretched up and up, well over 200ft, and the curved roof made the place feel like it might have been a giant’s cathedral. Huge, silver paste containers were spread throughout the space, like rockets ready to race off in space, only with mushed present paste spilling out over the top of them.

        Sualc Atnas eyes narrowed as he scanned the surroundings. It was dark in the paste storage facility. There were no windows as sunlight made the paste spoil very badly. But there was some low level lighting around the bases of the paste silos and the light from the hallway was spilling in from the gap between the giant doors at the entrance.

        Suddenly a squawk echoed from somewhere in the distance. Sualc Atnas squinted his eyes. There was something small and oval shaped sailing through the air in his direction. The sound of thunderous footsteps followed not far behind.

        “Come here you!” Gertrude wailed, bouncing off silos as she rushed after the quickly moving shape.

        Sualc Atnas rubbed his face in frustration and cleared his throat. “REGINALD!” he bellowed, so loudly that all of the paste silos vibrated as the echo of his voice carried down the entire paste storage facility and rebounded back again. “Get down here… now!”

        The oval shape that had been whizzing through the air circled above Sualc Atnas and Gunter before fluttering sheepishly to the ground.

        Reginald looked up at Sualc Atnas through his little black eyes, “Squawk,” replied the penguin guiltily.

        “I don’t care if you like the taste. It makes you fly. You can’t pull a submarine to the bottom of the sea if you’re lighter than air.”

        “Squawk,” replied Reginald again looking down at his feet.

        “Where are the rest of them?”
        “Squawk,” said Reginald, gesturing with his wing towards the far end of the paste storage facility.

        Sualc Atnas breathed deeply and then bellowed at the top of his voice, “Chaos, Trouble, Mischief, Deception, Anarchy, Turmoil, Strife!”

        Somewhere in the darkness there was a flutter of wings and a few moments later Reginald had been joined by his 7 companions, each guiltier looking than the last. Sualc Atnas glowered at them all.

        “Do we have to go through this every year?” he began, pacing back and forth in front of them like an angry sergeant major ready to discipline his troops. “The paste. Is not. For you. To eat. Penguins do not eat present paste. Present paste contains joy. Joy makes penguins lighter than air. Light penguins cannot pull the submarine. And if you cannot pull the submarine then I cannot do what?”
        “Squawk,” they replied in unison.

        “That’s right. I can’t make children miserable. And if I can’t make children miserable then you have no purpose. Carry on like this and I’ll have Gunter smash your nice warm beds in to kindling and dump all of you back in to those icy seas!”
        “Squawk,” the penguins responded, their eyes to the floor, in the same way that you or I would respond to our parents when being caught in the middle of doing something naughty.

        “Gertrude, Gromblerton,” Sualc Atnas called out, and two enormous, penguin poo-covered giants stepped out of the shadows.

        “Squish the joy out of them will you.”

        The penguins squawked their protest but were silenced by a vicious hiss from Sualc Atnas.

        “Enough,” he spat through his pointy teeth, before spinning on his heels and marching away.

        Now, you might be thinking that this doesn’t make any sense. Penguins can’t fly and there is no paste in this world that can make it so. Well, you would be right about half of that. You see, what you don’t yet understand about squashed-present paste is the magical properties that it contains. When Sualc Atnas whips these presents from under the trees of happy children dreaming dreams of wonderful, present filled mornings, these gifts are still coated in a magical substance; joy. Joy makes the improbable probable; it makes difficult things easy and even makes the impossible possible. When the giants squish and smush the presents down, they smush it in to a magical paste.

        Now, it still tastes awful because there are bits of rocking horse and iPad and hula-hoop mixed in with it, but the joy is locked inside. Its the reason the giants are able to live in such awful conditions throughout the year and not get upset about it as giants are prone to do. It’s the reason Sualc Atnas’ workshop is able to produce socks, soaps and off brand versions of your favourite toys at such an incredible rate. And it’s the reason penguins can slurp down a mouthful of it and take to the skies.

        Sualc Atnas looked over his shoulder as he left the paste storage facility to see Gertrude and Gromblerton frantically wrestling with the penguins, but he also heard the ‘parps’ and ‘poots’ of joy being squeezed from the birds and he smiled his twisted smile. No one would enjoy themselves too much whilst he was around, he was sure of that.

        “Come on Gunter” he called to his most trusted Giant, “my suit isn’t going to iron itself.”