SPIDER: I saw a movie the other night.
UNDISCOVERED BUG: Oh? & what was it called?
SPIDER: I believe it was called A Boy and His Dog.
UNDISCOVERED BUG: Sounds nice.
SPIDER: Oh, no. It wasn’t nice. But I thought you might be interested to hear about it because it's a love story.
UNDISCOVERED BUG: Yes! Yes, Spider, that might prove interesting.
SPIDER: The boy—I don’t recall his name. Let’s call him Smith-Corona Coronamatic. Smith-Corona Coronamatic went underground where most of the human race lived to find a girl. He wanted her very badly.
UNDISCOVERED BUG: He was in love with her?
SPIDER: I’m sure of it. When he found her, he & she were stuck underground. They worked together to escape. She said she loved him & he said she loved her too.
UNDISCOVERED BUG: & they lived happily ever after with the boy’s dog?
SPIDER: No, the dog & the boy ate her.
Spider’s retelling of A Boy and His Dog (1975) deliberately misunderstand the movie—but that’s me, appropriating a film to tell my own story. That story being about the indignities of love.
The film, by the way, is a black comedy set in the wake of WWIV during the year 2024. I’d like to know how the human race survived WWIII, but I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.
The MS. is missing its first page & whatever else I wrote after pg. 4. The last page introduces a character who is clearly a stand-in for me: Paperboy. (I delivered newspapers for several years, back when newspapers were carried in big canvas shoulder-bags early in the morning by gals & lads who rode bicycles & saved their tips to pay for college.) This part of the play doesn’t exactly make sense. Paperboy is depressed. Radiator told him he “is a stupid idiot” but Grapefruit told Paperboy she loves him. Paperboy then renounces Spider & Undiscovered Bug. They’re not the gurus he thought they were, apparently.
[ image: a screenshot from the opening sequence of A Boy and His Dog ]
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