Sadness is a Dialectic

1. Macaroni is dead and Marie Antoinette is sad.

    1.1. Macaroni was hit by a car that Eco Universal was driving and Marie Antoinette is sad and angry and lies in bed all day sad and angry watching YouTube videos of old Oprah interviews from the nineties and when a commercial for Kraft Mac n’ Cheese appears on her phone screen she cries and thinks about how much she hates the driver with the 279RLQ license plate and remembers how Macaroni used to curl up at the foot of the bed putatively protecting her and she would always joke that if an intruder broke in Macaroni would probably lick their hand and make them feel welcomed rather than barking and biting because he was sweet and a baby and was never aggressive and she thought about all this and got sad and angry.

1.2. Marie Antionette probably has an eating disorder.

    1.2.1 She only eats one small meal a day.

    1.2.2 Sometimes all she eats is Funyuns.  

      1.2.3. The thought of eating makes her sad.

    1.2.4. It also makes her throw up.

1.3. Marie Antionette is in her second semester of community college and hasn’t attended BIO 1001, ENC 1101, MAT 1000, or HIS 1002 since the day that Macaroni died.

    1.3.1. It has been over two weeks.

      1.3.2. She is going to fail all her classes.

      1.3.3. She doesn’t care.

1.4. Marie Antionette hasn’t left the house in the last 15 ½ days.

       1.4.1. She hasn’t seen her friends.

       1.4.2. Her parents, who she lives with, have only seen her approximately 12 times since Macaroni died.

    1.4.3. Marie’s parents ask if she wants a new puppy.

    1.4.4. She says no.

    1.4.5. It made her sad and mad.

    1.4.6. Her friends text her for all kinds of reasons: (1) to console her, (2) to see if she wants to go to the movies, (3) to ask why she wasn’t in class, (4) to tell her that their grandma died and that they know the death-sting.

    1.4.7. Marie doesn’t respond.

    1.4.8. Her professors remind her about the course withdrawal deadline.

    1.4.9. Marie doesn’t respond.

1.5. Marie Antionette chats on the internet.

    1.5.1. She talks about her dead dog, Macaroni.

    1.5.2. People on the internet say that they’re sorry her dog died.

    1.5.3. Marie says that it’s okay.

    1.5.4. People on the internet say that it doesn’t have to be okay, and that Marie evidently loved her dog, Macaroni, a lot.

    1.5.5. Marie says that it doesn’t matter.

    1.5.6. People on the internet say that it does matter.

    1.5.7. Marie says that it really doesn’t. Nothing does.

    1.5.8. People on the internet say that it really does because Marie is upset and she misses her dog, Macaroni, and that is normal.

    1.5.9. Marie says that it really really doesn’t matter because he’s gone and dead and someone just hit him and left him in the middle of the road like an empty can of coke and the person who hit him keeps on going but Macaroni doesn’t since he’s dead and now she feels like she’s dead too and if the purest Being she ever knew could be killed in the middle of the interstate and left there like an inanimate soda can then there was something fundamentally wrong with everything and that includes the entire world and everything in it. And none of that even matters.

1.6. Marie Antionette’s phone background is a picture of Macaroni.

    1.6.1 In the picture, Macaroni is laying on the beige carpet in Marie’s room, looking up at her as she takes the picture.

    1.6.2. His eyes are wide open and his tongue hangs from his mouth—a dog’s smile.







Teddy Duncan Jr. lives in Orlando, Florida. He can be reached via email.