The Man Who Talks to Birds

by Molly Jane Knefel

A transcript of the conversations between The Man and The Bird outside my window.

Scene: The tiny, garbage filled “courtyard” of a Bushwick row house. A girl is in her room, where she can hear her neighbor in one of the adjoining apartments, and the pigeon that lives in the courtyard.

Act 1

Bird: Coo. Coo.

Several hours pass. Intermittent coo-ing.

Bird: Coo. Coo.

Man: Shut up, you fucking bird!

A pause.

Bird: Coo.

Man: I said shut up!

Bird: Coo. Coo.

Act 2

Bird: Coo. Coo.

Man: Shut up.

Bird: Coo.

Man: Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

Bird: Coo.

Man: Fuck.

Act 3

Bird: Coo. Coo.

Man: [Having a seemingly one-sided scream conversation about the New York Giants.]

Bird: Coo.

Man: Eli Manning looks like a lost child inside the red zone.

Bird: Coo.

Man: Just let me finish this thought.

Bird: Coo, coo.

Man: I am having a conversation.

A pause.

Man: Thank you. Thank you so much.

Bird: Coo.

Man: Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Molly Knefel is a stand-up comic and writer in Brooklyn. She has a web series with her brother called John and Molly Get Along, a different web series called Naked in a Fishbowl, and a thrice-weekly internet radio show called Radio Dispatch.