Two pigeons are resting atop a fictional statue of Richard Dent in his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. They have just flown back to Georgia after spending Sunday afternoon at Soldier Field, watching Bears v. Packers. They are tired. They are hot. Their names are POODLE and PUDDLE, but neither of them knows the origins of those names.
POODLE: You know what I have noticed lately?
PUDDLE: What?
POODLE: Melancholy.
PUDDLE: Because of the election thing?
POODLE: Fuck the election.
PUDDLE: That’s what I say, but that’s just pigeon privilege.
POODLE: Pigeon privilege. What’s next?
PUDDLE: Something is always next.
POODLE: Melancholy. Deep, profound sadness.
PUDDLE: Like Hamlet?
POODLE: How do you know Hamlet?
PUDDLE: Guy with a beard and a scarf was walking through the park a few months back. He dropped a book and the blew it open. I walked over and gave it a perusal.
POODLE: Oh, you gave it a perusal, did you?
PUDDLE: I did. I gave it a perusal.
POODLE: What, my friend, did you peruse?
PUDDLE: I don’t know the story of the whole book, but I know there was a Hamlet and I know he was melancholy.
POODLE: How did you know he was melancholy?
PUDDLE: It said it in the play. That he had bad color, and this other character wanted him to shake off that color and be friendly.
POODLE: Good book?
PUDDLE: Wind blew it closed before I could get through that page, but it seemed like something you would like.
POODLE: I only ever read from two books. Both good!
PUDDLE: Which two?
POODLE: One was something about a salesman. Sad. The other was called Forum by an author called something Penthouse.
PUDDLE: I like reading. I wish I could read more.
POODLE: People are melancholy about all things now, is what I have noticed. Their looks, their relationships, their sports teams. There is just a default to melancholy now, and it’s getting worse.
PUDDLE: Well, look around.
POODLE: At what?
PUDDLE: At all of em!
POODLE: The people?
PUDDLE: Yes!
POODLE: What about em?
PUDDLE: They got their faces in the little black boxes now, the things in their hands. They don’t look at each other, don’t talk to each other, don’t even notice US and we’re fucking great! They’ve disconnected from the communal existence that we call life and receded into their own minds.
POODLE: And that makes them sad?
PUDDLE: Wouldn’t it make you sad?
POODLE: Don’t know.
PUDDLE: We’re not meant to live inside of ourselves. All the bad stuff is inside of ourselves. And what do you think is happening in these black boxes? What is so captivating that people can’t look away from them?
POODLE: Don’t know.
PUDDLE: Has to be a correlation. Or did people used to be this sad and nobody noticed?
POODLE: Maybe that’s what is in the black boxes.
PUDDLE: What?
POODLE: The sadness.
PUDDLE: You think?
POODLE: Maybe that guy in the jacket over there is saying he’s sad and that guy with the mustache is reading about his sadness and saying he’s also sad.
PUDDLE: Maybe.
POODLE: And then extrapolate that out. Next thing you know this whole town is just a bunch of people telling each other how sad they are.
PUDDLE: What about the happy people?
POODLE: We’re happy.
PUDDLE: We’re not people.
POODLE: But can’t they just do what we do?
PUDDLE: We shit on them, Poodle.
POODLE: I know.
PUDDLE: They can’t shit on each other, I don’t think.
POODLE: I don’t know why.
PUDDLE: Society.
POODLE: Fucking society.
PUDDLE: Maybe they should just put down the black boxes.
POODLE: Maybe.
PUDDLE: At least then they can just get sad because of their own shit, without having to deal with other people’s shit.
POODLE: The only thing that makes me sad is the football team.
PUDDLE: Same.
POODLE: Is that good?
PUDDLE: It is not.
The pigeons exit.