Penguins

The return trip to the lake house was devoid of thought or emotion; it was just another run to me, another twenty-four minutes of rhythmic and robotic motion that I embarked upon in a vain effort to maintain some ill-forged body image I had culled from society. On my off days, runs felt like this, like exercises in futility and mere playing at a real run. My body was certainly performing all of its necessary duties, moving my legs quickly enough and flexing or relaxing muscles at the correct intervals to maintain my pace, but my heart, my mind, was not in the thing. A runner who is out of his body is a beautiful sight because his body flows effortlessly while his mind floats above him like a cloud or a balloon tied to a child's wrist. I was buried deeply into myself, feeling every inch of flesh and sinew straining to get me back to the house.
I arrived and, soaked and shivering, unlocked the door. Under the protected awning that hung above the back porch, I kicked off my wet shoes and socks, peeled my shirt from my back, and entered in, locking the door behind me. My first instinct was, of course, to alert my grandmother to my presence. The smell of eggs and toast did not greet me this morning and neither did she. I realized quickly in this expansive house that I was alone and that she was not coming back for some time. I could feel a knot in my shoulders where tension had nestled itself angrily into the hollow between my shoulder blades, and my legs were hanging sailors' ropes for knotting practice. The shower beckoned, it being the warmest thing I could expect in a house that was so cold and empty.
I felt no less hollow in that shower than I had on the return trip from the exact midpoint of today's route. The heat and pressure from the nozzle did remove the knots from my muscles, slowly uncoiling them as my grandfather would uncoil the anchor lines on his - my, I suppose - boat when I was a small child, explaining the nuances of seamanship to me while I dangled my feet off of the dock and watched the silvery minnows dart about beneath my shadow. It left me drowsy and hungry.
I had read in Hemingway that hunger was a good discipline and that you learn from it. I was learning quickly that I did not like being hungry but also that it was an inevitable part of living alone. I had plenty of food in the pantry - my grandmother had made sure of that, and she had never eaten much to begin with - but I was loathe to see it evaporate before me simply because I was sad and needed comfort. If I needed to be comforted, I had a fireplace and a notebook that could do the same things with less self-disgust later. At the least, whatever nonsense I scribbled in the notebook could be jettisoned later via weekly garbage pickup. After I had toweled off, leaving my hair to hang in my eyes today, I donned a bathrobe and started a cup of coffee and some oatmeal. My day was more than half over, and I was eating breakfast. I decided to forgo the oatmeal in favor of more coffee and the acute clarity that being hungry and sleepless infers upon its participants.
Outside, the rain fell in sheets and washed across the long arm of the lake. The sand was becoming pocked and pitted from the impact of the heavy drops on its once-pristine surface, still unmarred by the plodding footsteps of summertime tourists, but now looking somewhat like the cratered face of the moon. Lushness was creeping into the lawn like a cat slinks after a vole. The house had been expertly placed so as to keep the windows relatively clear of rain; a few streams trickled down the corners where edges of the house met, but for the most part my view to the frontage was unhindered by moisture on the glass. I smelled coffee and poured myself a strong cup of it and sat at the table before the window. The lake was there.
I knew that I could have picked up the latest novel I was reading - it was something by a lady I had never heard of - or perhaps started writing poor prose or affected poetry in the notebook or maybe have made myself that oatmeal after all, but the rain was too enchanting for these endeavors. I worried that I would miss a moment of its terrific display and would regret that all day. I had missed much of my grandmother and was not sure I could stand to miss much more going on around me. I needed to become observant.
Under a small pocket of pines I had planted with my family twenty years ago was an equally small clutch of sparrows huddling together to stay dry and warm. I wanted to go outside and cover the tree with a tarp, drop seed on the ground, but it was not my place to interfere. They would make it somehow. They appeared to be a new family, not because they betrayed it in their demeanor but because I did not recognize them and I was well acquainted with the wildlife that flocked to the lake house and its welcoming yard. They seemed to be getting the hang of this place and had carved out a niche of their own, so I blessed them and assumed the laissez-faire affectation I was expected to.
The coffee had cooled significantly enough that I drank half of it and felt it warming my stomach and rejuvenating my limbs and heart and keeping my head still for a moment. That was what I needed: a still and clear head. She was going to do fine in Italy, and she would most likely enjoy being there more than she could ever love being here.
The rest of the day I watched the rain and the birds until the sky cleared and they hopped about, chirping and pulling worms joyfully from the ground. The bounty of the feast was their reward for outlasting a gully-washer. I felt proud and watched the news. I forgot to eat, but then, so did Hemingway, I suppose, and I was a much smaller man than he and could thus do better on less than he. This night, I slept warmly and soundly and dreamt of nothing but those flowery and empty dreams that ultimately mean nothing though you assume they surely must, so profound was the imagery and so hard was the rest. Alas, they meant nothing: I dreamt of penguins on a cupcake, spinning around me and smiling while singing "God Save the Queen" and pirouetting like beautiful little ballerinas, their tuxedos flapping lightly in their self-made breeze. The cupcakes were honeyed pumpkin and pecan, and I felt warm and gooey and lazy as though nothing could extricate me from the batter in which I was now imprisoned, even the corkscrewing hind feet of those elegant little penguins.