Darling, where's my watch?
I don't know.
Oh, now really. You know how unattractive I find the absence of benevolence in a woman.
Well which watch then?
My red one, with the hands.
Where is it?
On the dresser. Listen out: it beeps every hour.
On the hour?
He, a man; she, a woman. She spends her days in a small damp room, trying on shoes, he fits fuses to homing pigeons. Physically they're repellent; they're like everyone else with their bare arms, hair, breath and shoes. They know this: they see themselves every day in the mirror, scraping junk on or off their flawed faces. They've had years to get used to it, but it doesn't stop them crying. There's nothing they can do about it, but it still upsets them deeply. They draw no solace from everyone being as ugly as they are.
Their dead children are as ugly as they are. There's no youthful exuberance that could hide the problems with those bodies. There's no joyful laughter, depressed laughter, smiles, jokes, happiness, there's just ugliness in its myriad forms. They go unhoovered, their faces dry with crumbly dirt, but one could never call them rogues. These people are emotionless wrecks, both giving and receiving. Their tears aren't real; they copy what they see on TV in the hope that they can paper over the vacuum that is their lives.
Stupidity isn't a cause for, or effect of ugliness, they just go hand in hand like toast and cheese. It makes compassion that much harder from either direction, but compass we must: these are ugly, stupid people through no fault of their own - although it's certainly not my fault; it might be your fault, but only you can truly judge that. So they're worthless, so their death would be noticeless, but whose wouldn't? These people are the norm, these people are you and us, going about their business, making the best of a bad situation, striving in difficult circumstances. Give them a hug, or kill them; I don't suppose it really matters, but it might.
Without the watch he forgot to feed the pigeons, they collapsed of malnutrition, and landed on his wife's place of work. She would have been blown up if the dampness hadn't extinguished the fuses. The moral of the story is either overfeed your pigeons, keep a watch at work, keep the walls wet or just ride stuff out, letting whatever happens carry you through, ugly and stupid. The morale of the story is rather low, although it perks up later on for no good reason.