A laser like “mush”, cracked Jack London, driving his troika ofGerman Shepherds, across the tundra of Antarctica, the frozen ice toward the ensnared ship of scientists, trapped in theblockade, unable to navigate micro inches since Christmas Eve. An SOS plucked out of the below zero wind drifts by a Chinese Empress rescuer, but their Charlie Chan number one son tested as they were, got stuck in the those thick lie ice trappings, only the laughing penguins, pigeon toeing their own homestead,snaring the great multi skin pigmented hunters, wind chill 7 below.
II
Was this the same “Sea Wolf” captained by Edward G. Robinson? The”Bounty” by Charles Laughton in his sadistic Captain Bligh ego trip? The whaler “Moby Dick”; the crew undermined by a harpooned mammal. Melville capturing theferocity in a annotation, foreshadowing the voyage back to portin Massachusetts…
Meanwhile the chopper , its props spinning, capturing the dancing penguins like they were the Rockets at Radio City Music Hall. Charlie Chan and his numero uno son, testing the frozen carpet as a landing strip, the “wheels down”, the ice holding…Charlie Chan and the number one son, throwing open the doors, the 50 some Russian scientists, glee on theirfaces…..a blessedness that goes back a hundred some years as Admiral Perry and other Antarctica pioneers sought to map ,exploring the unknown at the tip of our Continent.
III
Amelia Earhart , Colonel Jacqueline Cochrane of IndioCalifornia, breaking the ice, in their own idiom for discovery? Where does one draw the line? Their lives resonant of the riddle of existence. Their quest.
Put that into your DNA fodder: neurons nesting among the frontal lobes, cranium, cortex .
As the scientists began their trek to the chopper, the penguins stood in their solemnity, clapping up a storm, the helicopter’s sound as a whirling dervish and spinning Filipino yo yo.
The crew’s twenty two stood at their ship’s railing as the chopper returned for their second tri p, rescuing the last of the scientists, the Charlie Chan and number one son chopper into apattern, the penguins into their audition, marveling at humancollaboration, clapping their wings.
Jack London’s laser like “Mush” resounding thru the scene.
January 2, 2014. The city that never sleeps during a blizzard, the howling winds at 7 degrees below, two feet of snow on the ground.
