I think it's called skydiving. Or sky-surfing. Or sky-skating. Five thousand feet above the ground. No, above the Southern Ocean. Is that even a real place?

I jump out of a plane, and a kind of skateboard without wheels is already strapped to my feet. Just a board. I can't do this. I've never even parachuted, and now a board? I go into a tailspin. I'm a ballerina. Surgeons forbid it, but I… yeah, aerobatics. I try to pull out of the tailspin, but it’s even harder than skipping across water. As a result, I hang upside down on the board, and the tailspin continues. It would be fine, except my speed, I think, is close to the square root of energy (E) divided by mass (M).

Down.

Then I unclip the board, and it almost flies into interplanetary space. I tuck it under my backpack straps and start to balance over the shore of the Maria Stewart Sea, or over Cape Elizabeth, or over the "Penguin" resort station. Then I put the board back on, and this time, the butter of the air surrenders to me. I slice slickly towards the lower edge of this world. I'm a one-passenger pilot.

Sea, snow, ice. People, penguins, airplanes. What’s the odd one out?

I pull the parachute, and you could see me now if you just looked up. I’m here. Altitude—two hundred meters. Estimated flight time—boom! You're too busy. You're strangling a king penguin. That’s how the station staff initiate you into polar life. They won’t tell you a penguin can hold its breath for half an hour. These are all seasoned field scientists, all with beards and mustaches trimmed into the most bizarre shapes of next-gen airplane parts. They all carve out their polar smiles with their teeth. They have a lot of work. Can you imagine, not every Wall Street schmuck in a tie has as much work as these silver-gleaming astronauts wrapped in synthetic jumpsuits. And today, they came to watch you strangle this poor penguin, which a hundred people before you have already strangled.

We looked at the sky together. We were in the sky together. You saw me in the sky. Or could have seen me? What else?

I land in Antarctica. I roll on the board, and it makes that same sound. A siren. A small signal of a small incident. Do you care? No, but you do care! Yet you’re not rushing to answer. You’re not hurrying to react. I can guess you heard everything, saw everything, and understood everything. You’re formulating your opinion, and that’ll take time. Maybe. But at least you remember all of this. Try to say you don’t!

Infatuation, love, passion. Playing lecturer, circus on a train, skydiving on a board. What’s the odd one out?