Sundarta by Megh

Yuliya Pieletskaya on Instagram

Toads have always been.

“Gustav, my friend, why so glum?”

The penguin in question looked up from his half-eaten sprat, shaking his head in disgust.

“Not glum, Sebastian. Affronted, outraged - I had the most perturbing encounter with one of the Beakless Ones.”

Sebastian nodded solemnly. “Yes, they are often perturbing. What happened, my friend?”

Gustav sighed heavily, looking up to the sky and holding his flippers wide, as if to ask the gods “why?”, before mournfully retelling his experience, “I was on the beach where the Beakless sometimes wander, contemplating names for this year’s chicks, when one of them approached. It seemed harmless enough to greet - they’re cute, in a strange, bald and flat-faced way, are they not?”

“Oh Gustav, you kind-hearted fool.”

“Such a fool, I am!” Gustav’s moans had gathered a small crowd already - the only thing penguins love more than a bellyful of fish, is a story. A good storyteller was always guaranteed a warm spot to huddle in the winter, surrounded by bored friends longing for entertainment.

“What did it do, Gustav? Did it kick you?”

“No! When it got close, I called out to it, ‘hello, friend!’. It stopped and returned the greeting - awkwardly, but it was rather sweet, like a chick learning it’s first chirps. ‘Hollow fren,’ it said back to me. I was charmed, but not wanting it to learn poor pronunciation, I repeated the greeting, and so did it! Getting clearer each time, till it could almost pass for a true penguin itself.”

“Gustav is a wonderful teacher,” Adelina, his mate, stated with a proud nod of her lovely blue head. “You remember how well our chicks could enunciate, before they even caught their first fish.”

“But what of it, Gustav? What happened to sour this experience so?”

“We went back and forth, till I was satisfied. It lowered itself near the ground, and I moved closer, carefully, not wanting to alarm it. I was just about to tell it how pleased I was, that it learning so quickly, when all of a sudden, it looked me right in the eye and said ‘Fuck off, freak.’”

There were avian gasps all around.

“Oh no!”

“How rude!”

“I was so appalled, I could not bring myself to even chide it.” Gustav bowed his head in shame. “I turned and left without another word.”

“It said that to you? Oh dear.” Sebastian tilted his head in a piercing glare towards one of their fellows, focusing on the only one who was slapping his sides and chortling. “Björn, you scoundrel! What have I told you about yelling obscenities at the Beakless?”

by  Saṃsāran

It all fades. It all ends. Our youth, our very lives. The very face of the Earth constantly changes and one thing ends and changes to another. Nothing lasts and this, for we short lived creatures, is the source of much of our suffering. It is as if everything has a time as well as a place. In fact time is change. Without time nothing changes. Without change there is no time. So, we see that change is the nature of time and space. It is the way it is.

Now the question is: how are we going to deal with it?

Most of us deal with change and the inevitable loss which comes of it by simply refusing to think about it. After all we know we are going to grow old and die but why be morbid and worry all the time. This works for awhile when we are young. Then one day we see a gray hair, a wrinkle. We squint to read the fine print. Then it becomes more real to us and the fear sets in. Very few real problems can be solved by ignoring them.

What is the alternative?

Spending our youth worrying about age, disease and death? That hardly seems a resolution to the problem. When it comes right down to it there is but one thing we can do and that is accept and embrace change in a real sense. In this way we can stay flexible. Little children are remarkably resilient when it comes to change and they adapt and this is a hallmark of youth. So we stay young. We accept, we embrace it, we adapt and we stay free of encumberances. We live compassionate lives. We are kind. We are honest. Then, when the reaper comes for his due we can look the old bastard in the eye and say “do your worst” for we will have lived good lives.

Metamorphosis

by Kazuhiko Nakamura

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