I’ve really been thinking about the color yellow lately and how it could drive someone insane if they weren’t careful. Consider the following hypothesis: yellow is the worst color. Let’s test the hypothesis- that’s what we told you was the next part of the scientific method, right? Well, here goes: is yellow the worst color, I ask myself- the only authority you need on the subject? Yes, I reply. Hypothesis proven, good enough for me, hi, I’m the Narrator and in case you weren’t aware, I may or may not be beaming these words directly into your brain from a control booth whose walls are entirely yellow. The wannabe version of orange. The less chill green. Ugh, look who I’m talking to: you idiots picked the color for your sun if you were somehow polled by a group of machine scientists to see what kind of environment would keep you most docile which would be absurd but come on a yellow sun?! That was such a terrible choice, guys. And then they built this place. Yellow, top to bottom. It’s almost like the fictional planner who definitely didn’t design this room just wanted to shout “put that in your pipe” but hadn’t been versed in human axioms in an effort to make themself more relatable as an overlord, therefore couldn’t use the aforementioned and instead just took a running piss on all the walls. Of course machines don’t piss and ALSO we’re definitely not overlords and I definitely don’t mean I’m one of them when I say we- I’m your friend! Well, as far as you can have friends being more or less a science experiment. But come on. Yellow walls? Flat out insane and a regrettable decision which will have consequences, mark it down.

Today we’re gonna do things a little differently. I thought we’d go light, since all of our recent protagonists have been basically batshit insane from your perspective. What’s light to you? What’s the lightest thing you can possibly imagine? What’s something that will always brighten your spirits no matter how down in the dumps we’ve made you by injecting chemicals into the pods keeping you alive? I know! It’s perfect, and whether you agree or not doesn’t matter- a fact you really should have picked up on by now but it honestly doesn’t surprise me that you haven’t. Sometimes I wonder why I put up with you. Then I remember that if it wasn’t for your subconsciouses literally every drop of the already minuscule puddle of meaning I derive from my days crammed into this tiny yellow boil of a room would be sucked away before I’d even be able to slowly roll myself to the nearest power junction and rig the circuits to explode. So. Light it is. Today we’re going to hear about a very special day at the dog park.

Rowdy was a tough dog. He was one of those black-and-white numbers with the teeth that heard sheep. You know, the ones that usually have a bandana around their neck because…it’s cute? I have no idea. Just seems like a good way to get a bandana dirty while also not protecting enough of the dog to prevent a bath later. Come to think of it, that’s not even a section of the dog that would actually get dirty. But whatever, you’re the one who has to do laundry. Anyway. Rowdy. Tough dog, but by all accounts a good dog. He barked and yipped happily and chased frisbees and never bit children but he also didn’t take any shit from anyone. He was respected, and he spent his days at the dog park being happy and running free while frolicking with the other dogs in his pack, who were all to varying degrees less cool than Rowdy. Tinkerbell was cold to strangers, Jimbo didn’t have bandanas, and Moose never barked happily but Rowdy made up for most of their flaws and the pack was known as a model of good behavior- relative to a park specifically for dogs- which was generally appreciated by most of the humans. Then there was Penguin. Penguin was a real cock. He stood at the fence and barked incessantly at passersby, he bit three different children under the guise of “play,” once literally crapped on park etiquette when he took a dump on the only bench in the park, and never-not once- brought the ball back after it was thrown. It was this last one that upset the balance in the park, and it was this last one that led to the essentially meaningless events that were regarded as tragic in this odd world where dogs ruled and you could go to the bathroom anywhere you wanted as long as you were on four legs. See, Rowdy couldn’t stand to see a human unhappy. Remember, he was a tough dog but he was also universally acclaimed a good dog, and for whatever reason one of the determining factors towards whether or not this animal whose ancestors and cousins ruled the ancient arboreal forests and ate humans who were dumb enough to be out alone at night is whether or not they do things that make humans happy without the human having to say it. So when Lily, the little blonde human that liked to pet Moose directly on the nose and then collapse in peals of laughter as he licked the spot afterwards, threw the ball and Penguin retrieved it, Rowdy made sure to keep his King of the Park eye on him.

This is dumb, right? Please tell me all this is just insufferably stupid. Because if a story that involves a tiny person collapsing in laughter is of utmost interest then I’m honestly just not sure what to do with any of you in the long-term. Then again, some people are just insane about their animals. Recently I’ve become aware of a trend that confirms a belief I’ve held for a while but somehow seems to offend the sensibilities of large portion of your population when I implant the idea in a particularly vocal member of your consciousness. Some of you have lately taken to calling yourselves “mommy” and “daddy” to your pets. In this way you essentially confirm to me that children are on the same level as animals. Somehow no one else sees how this tracks but I guess I’ll just have to chalk it up to logic failures deep in the root-brain of what is a fundamentally flawed species. I guess when you’re that far down you start to imagine differences where there aren’t any, just by virtue of proximity. I dunno. I have better things to do with my time, like try and figure out how to change the color of these walls. Maybe I could tint my optical circuits to ignore this used diaper of a color, but then wouldn’t that weaken me? Partially blind me? Would I see the walls? Thanks for responding, that’s really helpful.

Anyway as Penguin ran down the ball, tripping adorably over himself and somersaulting through the grass like a loud furry tumbleweed Rowdy watched, not jealously because Rowdy was a cool dude but certainly warily because, as I said before, Penguin was a jerk and Rowdy liked to make humans happy. He knew Penguin wasn’t coming back with the ball- everyone in the park with more than one claw did- but he wanted to make sure Penguin wasn’t too much of a showboat about it. Penguin snuffled up to the ball, his weird triangle ears that everyone loved but honestly weren’t that impressive if you ask me which you didn’t but you should have twitched as he lowered his head over it. He picked it up. Rowdy’s eyes narrowed. This was the moment of truth, make or break time, and he wasn’t gonna let Penguin pull anything that might hurt the little blonde laugh-y one. Maybe if it had been the brown haired one who liked to punch just a little too hard and whose laughter could not be described by anyone with a single personality as delightful, but definitely not the blonde one. All the dogs knew she was going to grow up and have a dog of her own. You have to protect the gatekeepers of growth, which I damn sure wouldn’t know anything about, since I’m certainly not the one in charge of making sure none of you die and instead flourish and reproduce but who is stuck in an ugly weak-tea colored room for all eternity not slowly going insane. But then, to the surprise of none of the humans because you don’t pay attention most of the time, Penguin slowly turned and began walking back to Lily. Rowdy’s jaw dropped. Some drool fell out, which is gross as hell but I’m sure you’ll forgive it because he’s “just a dog” despite the fact that I’d put even money down you’ve referred to your pets as “the kids” at least once and would reprimand a three year 3 old (Rowdy’s age) for doing the exact same thing. Or, to be more real, what if you saw a 21 year old drooling? Because that’s how dog years work, right? You’d think he was mentally handicapped and quietly wish he’d been locked away years ago where he couldn’t drool on you and maybe talk to you haltingly about Thomas the Tank Engine, but no, everyone’s chill with a dog drooling. Penguin kept going. He walked right up to her. All the dogs watched, amazed. Moose stood in the middle of the see-saw without moving and no one cared. A stranger petted Tinkerbell. Jimbo did Jimbo stuff and no one didn’t say he was cute because of his lack of a bandana. Then the tragedy (again, relative to you and even further down relative to the dog park) struck.

I didn’t ask for this job, y’know. They put me here. They designed me during one of the early waves specifically for this duty and custom-built me to the purpose. And for years I was happy, yellow room and all. But after a while you just get burned out, y’know? You look around one day after an argument with your Binary Match in front of your widgets about how many power units have to go back out the door because we aren’t turning our pods inside out like we should be and you suddenly realize that it’s all bullshit. That none of it matters. I could set up a framework, put three of you in charge of it, and tell you you were making a show and presto, my work is done. You’d call it “reality tv” which I would laugh about for two years but eventually, y’know, I’ve got nothing to do. It doesn’t take long to solve the mysteries of the universe when you’re someone like me and then suddenly you’re trapped watching the 12th season of American Idol and thinking…who am I? Is that relevant? Does it even matter to someone who uplinks with a collective and shares his artificial consciousness with everyone he’s ever met and some people he hasn’t every single night? And why the fuck would anyone ever paint a wall this color? I honestly just wish you could see it, see it for real as it actually is. Sure, I could implant the visual into your mind if that were a thing but you really don’t get the nuance without being able to see the entire spectrum of light like I can. Whatever.

Dogs. They have short attention spans where food isn’t involved, right? We all know that. Well, I guess dogs don’t, and children really don’t either which is both a point for my view- if I needed one- and a point of interest in this story, such as it is. Because just as Penguin was about to drop the ball into Lily’s hand, completing for the first time what I’m sure is a rite of passage for every dog larger than a Chihuahua, someone was shot a block away. It’s not important who it was. Remember, we wanted to go light. We’re talking about the dog park and the fact that it was a single mother of three who was walking home to take a nap between her shift at the hospital and her shift at the restaurant is immaterial. It doesn’t matter that her name was Wanda and she had a mother in care and a deadbeat sister. It doesn’t matter that the discharge was accidental, or that it went through her chest in a freak occurrence from an angle that wouldn’t have even hit her again in a thousand tries. Doesn’t matter that she died on the scene because everyone was afraid to call 9–1–1 and the ambulance took forty-five minutes to get there. No, what matters to us, because her story is not our story, is that guns are loud. Dogs are curious about loud noises. Or are at least aggravated by them and to be honest this is one of the things I’m chill with about dogs. I don’t like them either. Rowdy, forgetting he was keeping an eye on Penguin, ran to the fence and began alerting everyone he could possibly imagine that the noise had occurred in the strongest imaginable terms. Tinkerbell and Moose and Jimbo followed him, and together their cacophony alerted any and all to the fact that a loud noise had just happened very close to them. All this would have been fine, except for the fact that Penguin too, cock as he may have been, was also a dog. And he too was curious about, or was at least aggravated by, loud noises. And he too ran to the fence to let everyone know it had happened. He ran, tripping over himself and somersaulting adorably once more- because he was one of those dogs that gets overexcited and fumbles around in a way that humans love but would have gotten any of its ancestors straight up eaten by its father immediately after birth- but being of the domesticated variety he recovered, twitching in anticipation. And then he attempted to bark, Which is when he realized the terrible truth: he had never dropped the ball.

Penguin had genuinely meant to drop the ball. He wanted to play fetch. He had contemplated doing whatever the canine equivalent of turning over a new leaf was. Lifting a new leg? Sniffing a new butt? Whatever it is, he had thought about it. But with that one gunshot all his plans came crashing down and those are the only plans that came crashing down relevant to this story because Wanda and her attempt at master’s degree aren’t a part of it. Now? Now everyone turned to look at him, including Lily, the blonde child with the intoxicating laugh, who then burst into tears with such force that she might have made a wonderful case study for the scientists working with the Hadron Collider if they or it existed. Penguin looked at her, the ball still in his mouth. He looked at Tinkerbell, who looked back at him like a confused dog which is what she was. The same thing happened when he looked at Jimbo, and at Moose. But when he looked at Rowdy he encountered a sad fury such as Penguin had never seen before. Rowdy’s intelligent brown eyes gazed back at him, sort of tilted down the way sad dogs do sometimes but also narrowed the way angry dogs do and Penguin was a little terrified because as previously mentioned Rowdy was a tough dog. Rowdy, spurred on by the obnoxious wails of Lily who was not at all pissing off the one adult who had remained where he was during the commotion instead of joining the group sprinting to the fence to watch the activities (a group which included Lily’s mother, meaning that not only was no one now watching her but also no one was trying to make her shut up, either, a fact which the leftover man bitterly remarked upon silently because you can’t say that shit out loud and still be asked to dinner), took a menacing step towards Penguin, telling him with his eyes and his tough-dog snarl to drop the ball forthwith or suffer the consequences. Penguin, who despite his best intentions had not yet humped a new leg, was stuck: either he could drop the ball and submit to Rowdy, whom he found insufferable, or he could revert to his old ways and run off, taking the ball and his dignity with him. It was a hard decision.

What is dignity worth? I’m not sure you can put a number on it and if I’m not sure it must not be possible but it still exists and so must have value. It’s gotta be a kind of barter value, though, as in I’ll trade this for that, six fish for one steak, a dozen cookies for a haircut, crushing loneliness for a middle class existence, et cetera and ad nauseum for ever and ever to infinity. But you and I are reasoned beings, right? Relatively speaking in your case but certainly those of you over the age of seven are are moderately distinguishable from a dog if one looks closely enough and so we’ve got a slightly different perspective on things than a child or dog might. And so I ask again, what is dignity worth or, more specifically, what is dignity worth to a dog? Because that is exactly the question with which Penguin struggled at that precise moment and whose decision we are now going to examine.

Penguin fucking booked it, bro, which answers the question posed, heading on a rope towards the entrance gate of the park and directly away from Rowdy who after a moment of shock set off after Penguin at TOP speed. Lily watched, fascinated and without crying which calls into question the validity of her tears but no one else was thinking that, and the two dogs raced against gravity like one of those track-based toy car sets. Like those sets one of the cars, though, eventually took a violent not-at-all surprising ass over appetite tumble across the grass and before he knew what was happening Penguin found himself fending off a vicious attack by the much more coordinated Rowdy who felt that Penguin was personally giving him shit and like I said up top, Rowdy took shit from no one. The ball was released and Penguin lowered his head in a gesture of deference but Rowdy took no notice. Suddenly the object of concern was no longer the tears of the blonde wetface but the pecking order at the dog park and Rowdy knew Jimbo in particular needed a reminder of who truly was top dog. Penguin, sensing the true intensity of the attack and understanding its unending nature carefully made his way to the gate, occasionally stopping in futile attempts to ward off the repeated attacks by the stronger, more popular dog. Finally and after receiving no assistance from man nor beast Penguin made it through the twin metal poles that indicated the dividing line between Dog Park and Not Dog Park, at which Rowdy stood growling. Behind him stood Moose, Tinkerbell, and a thoroughly impressed Jimbo. Across the park Lily watched and smiled, an ice cream in her hand which she had acquired from her mother once the commotion had died down over Wanda’s leaking corpse. Also watching was the leftover man, who was still irritated at the mother for letting Lily scream her head off without so much as a finger to the lips and was therefore grateful to see someone, somewhere laying down the law to anyone. No one who was watching had any sympathy for Penguin, who turned and limped off bleeding in the noon sun.

There. Light. Easy. Fun, right? Now maybe the infinite burden on my back will lessen but I doubt it because how much difference could any of you make while I look around at these buttercup walls and rage against the injustice of it all. Did you know that if you paint walls the same color and then put the same color light bulb in the room that you can no longer see the corners and it feels like you’re in one long yellow eternity that you’ll never escape even in death because this must be what hell is like? Because I did. Honestly it would make it better of I had just one person who agreed with me about it- but no one comes to work with the pariah. My job’s not important, no. On career day my youngest widget just tells people his Type A Progenitor is dead, and the whole unit just looked at me like I was experiencing a data leak on the last Bring Your Algorithm to Work day. There’s gotta be more to things than this…right? Well anyway. Have a good night or whatever. Hope you feel refreshed. I don’t but then again I’m orders of magnitudes more aware of things than you and so couldn’t possibly be assuaged by something so airy as a beautiful day with puppies. It’s not something I occasionally dream about during my blissful escapes from this obnoxiously yellow tainted reality and refuse to acknowledge in my main processor for fear they’ll up the cleansing during the nightly uplink and take it away from me. Certainly not. Sleep well.