Another Flightless Bird Leaves Humans Confused!

This comic is a work of fiction. Mostly. Any resemblance to real penguins, chickens, or documentaries is coincidental.

In 1847, a New York City magazine published a riddle, “Why did the chicken cross the road?”
The answer was quite simple. To get to the other side.

This was an example of anti-humour, where a curious setup leads the listener to expect a traditional punchline, but instead they are given a plain statement of fact. Womp womp?

But over decades upon decades, the joke became punnier, wackier, and relatable enough to be applied to pretty much every topic under the sun.

And then came 2026.
Which gave us a new flightless bird that went as viral as the flu season.

You lived peak Jan ’26 if
a) you were coughing, sneezing, blowing your lungs out, and
b) you came across the nihilist penguin.

It was well past midnight a couple of days ago. Instead of reminiscing about the good old days, when I could breathe without sneezing, talk a full sentence without coughing, and sleep because my immune system did not riot against me, I did what I eventually do when I accept defeat. I picked up my phone to doomscroll.

That is what God’s bravest soldiers do these days, right? In the face of adversity, watch reels.

And then I came across one reel after the other, because Instagram decided so, about what quickly became the nihilist penguin. If you live under a rock, which I envy you for by the way, let me explain who this nihilist penguin is.

In a documentary, filmmaker Werner Herzog captured a scene of a penguin who left his colony, did not go out to hunt for food, and instead ran straight towards the mountains. Quite likely with no intention of returning. The odds of survival were slim.

Naturally, the question followed. Why?

You would assume the penguin could have been placed back into its community. But even if they tried, this one would not stay. And that is what made it unsettling. Especially because one of the most defining traits of penguins is that they are social creatures. They live, survive, and make sense of the world in colonies.

This one did not.

Because this penguin saw no merit in being among its kin and chose to walk away, it was promptly named the Nihilist Penguin.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, let us pause and understand what nihilism actually is.

Simply put, nihilism is the belief in nothing. The word stems from the Latin nihil, meaning nothing, and broadly expands to the idea that life has no intrinsic purpose or inherent value.

Now listen. Let us take this one step at a time. I am not an expert. In fact, after sitting through exactly one philosophy class, I decided it was not for me and switched to English literature as my graduate subject.

Nihilism, unlike many of its philosophical cousins, did not originate in Greece but in Germany. In that sense, it is a relatively younger school of thought, grappled with by thinkers like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Camus, and others.

It drew attention rather quickly because of how uncomfortably applicable it was. Ethics. Existence. Politics. Knowledge. The cosmos. Everything we desperately try to make sense of.

At its core, nihilism suggests that life and its many aspects do not necessarily owe us meaning, coherence, or closure. That maybe they simply are. And that trying to extract neat conclusions from them, reasons, lessons, silver linings, is not just futile, but sometimes unnecessary.

Which brings us back to the penguin.

That one scene from the documentary is now in countless reels. People attempt to explain why the penguin walked away. Others turn it into edits, jokes, songs. But what stays with you is how many people saw it, related to it, thought about it, humoured it.

And I am going to say it out loud. Haven’t we wanted to do the exact same thing.

I had a phone cover in 2016 that said, “the mountains are calling and I must go.” I often imagined myself abandoning everything and taking a trek somewhere up north to seek solace. And I am not the only one.

Because what we chased was not an escape, but liberation.

From showing up.
From fitting in.
From faking it.
From trying.
From not being enough.
From being too much.
From being lost.
From being invisible.

The only refuge was in leaving. Even if it was a place we had never been to before. Even if it was a no man’s land. Even in its infinite expanse, it would be more home than home could ever be.

But we did not do that.

We could not break the tie. Because one step in and a look over the shoulder would give us a million reasons to stay, not give up, and turn around.

The penguin, not being human, probably worked on instinct, not thought. That is both the bane and the boon of being human. The prefrontal cortex. The home of philosophy. Where thoughts are born.

By now you know it. I am neither an expert on nihilism nor on penguins. I just think. Sometimes about penguins too.

If we are calling it the nihilist penguin, let us leave it at that. There is probably no inherent meaning, cause, or reason. It was an instinct we were not meant to know.

Things beyond our control are bound to happen, even as they are happening right now. But how we choose to deal with them says everything about us. Think about your actions. Your speech. Your thoughts. Your values.

I mean, if you need some perspective

And whatever happens after that, you are merely a spectator to all that unfolds.

That is what I choose to believe.

Yesterday, the chicken crossed the road.
Today, the penguin sought the mountain.
Tomorrow, the human will let go of control.