“ARRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

Okay, so I’m going number two, and I’m concentrating. I’m in my Zen Mode, trying to make this a spiritual experience. Frosty, who paddled all the way from India, told me Gandhi was so into his own number two he thought the condition and quality of it revealed the condition and quality of his life.

I find that very inspiring.

A cloud of warmth from cattle gas and illegal CFC-11 (the ozone-eating stuff used to make foam furniture) wafts in from the South, and I made my final push--

“ARRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWZYX!”

Thup!

There I was, a trillion tonnes of ice, detached from Mother Antarctic. My iceberg buddies wobbled goodbye to me, grinning as I drifted further and further, flushed by the warm currents--

“WAIT!” a squeak squeaked.

I shifted my balance to see a small, flimsy penguin in her best tux flapping toward me. She cartwheeled onto my back and slapped me a pentillion times. I hate her.

“You were going to leave without me! I thought we were going to find Summer together!” Darcy humped, digging her webbed paddles into my back as she stormed across me. I sniffled. I was a tinsy bit ashamed, but who could remain floating around a cod killer like Darcy.

“Uhhhh--”

Darcy pounded my back, throwing her avalanche of weight onto me. (Okay, maybe sometimes I’m a little wussy.)

“Okay! Sorry! Chill!”

I began my journey north with Darcy the penguin on my back. Little water wiggles (aka currents) propelled me forward, bouncing white salsa flakes at my sides just in case I was hungry. After a few hours of this, Darcy fell face down onto my back. She must be tired after a long day of catching stinky fish from below my belly. I closed my eyes, letting the waves wash me as I wondered what it would be like when I reached Summer. I don’t know why, but I’ve always loved the idea of Summer! When life gets boring beneath the polar bears, who use me as their fur glossing mirror, I like to hold onto my dream of relaxing in the summer sun and just letting off steam!

Oh, Summer! Just imagine! With my body against the burning sand and lemonade in my hand as I get gorgeously tanned... Oh! I’ll finally see the summer breeze blow away the winter storm! I wonder happens to solid water when it gets warm!

“AHHHHHHHHHH--”

Something itched me. I peeled open my reluctant eyes. It was a coral seahorse carrying a small pink stick the size of one of my eyelashes. On each end were two soft-looking white knobs.

“Corse passing. Corse passing. Make way!” the tiny seahorse chanted as he waved his wand like a king.

“Excuse you!” I pointed with my invisible arms. “What’s that?”

“You mundane ‘berg, this pure, cloud-tipped wand is a collectable I acquired from the Maldives! ‘Bergs like you who’ve only lived in the cold have no idea how many treasures lie in Summer!” Corse stuck his snout into the sun, parading his stick like a trophy. Like the show horse he was, he held his “prize” right under my nose until the fuzzy tips began to tickle. It smelled like a mix of dead salmon and rotten shrimp. I gagged with my hydrogen molecules.

“Gross. Stay away from me.” I covered my invisible nose, but my mouth still bubbled my curiosity. “Where can I get some?”

“Up ahead. It’s so close I can taste it.” Corse licked his stick, sprinkling his saliva all over my cheeks. “Gotta go show my wife. See ya later, ‘berg!”

I watched as Corse lugged the stick down into the depths of the coral reef. Curious, I followed his bubble trail to his one-story coral home. NOT THAT I WAS JEALOUS OF HIS COLLECTABLE! I peeked through the window as the seahorse showed his treasure to his wife, who in turn was so excited she fed it to the baby. AGAIN, NOT JEALOUS!

I decided to swim forward toward my treasure, Summer, of course, letting the warming waters penetrate me. If a half-sea, half-horse creature could find treasures, surely I could! The waters seem to grow higher and higher as I approach Summer. They jumped up and down, carrying me up and down like a rollercoaster. I gulped--

“GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

A giant island of plastic bags enveloped my vision! I shook with all my might, but the more I shook, the more it clinged, suffocating all the oxygen out of me. I tried to scream, but my mouth was sealed shut. I couldn’t die now! I haven’t even found Summer yet--

“Ugh. Need to help you with everything,” Darcy moaned as she meticulously picked plastic off my dazzlingly gorgeous face. She tapped me with her flappers, her fingers unusually sticky with sweat. “I feel a bit weird… I’m going to take a nap. Tell me when we reach Summer, okay--”

Darcy wobbled forward, falling face flat back into her slumber.

I gasped for a breath of cool refreshing air-- but it wasn’t air… It was smoke. Skyscrapers of smoke swirled through the air, clogging my lungs.

Suddenly, I wanted to return home! I pulled and tugged with all my will, but the warm currents just kept pushing me away! The ruthless waves chomped a crack through my body, and before I knew it, the water rushed through my crack and began to sing inside me, a song about the humans it had seen--about the people whose desire for beef was warming the planet as CO2 eating trees are razed to clear land for pasture and their billion cows each pumped 100 kg of methane into the air per year, about the factories whose greed was bleaching and acidifying the ocean as marine animals died or were forced into exile from the coral reefs they called home, and the countries who illegally pumped ozone-eating CFC-11 into the air as they manufactured foams for furniture and buildings in aerosols and as refrigerants.

It was a long tale, a tale of woe...  

I listened, helpless, as the sea’s song reverberated through my belly and shivered me down to my toes. Summer, whose beauty I had marveled at few moments ago, was in my bones. I whimpered as I felt myself soften and melt, shrinking, shrinking into the sea…

Darcy trembled on my shrinking back, her beak open in a silent scream as the maw of the sea opened to embrace her.

I closed my eyes...and melted...into nothing.