The Pockets – Series 1 | Episode 1 by Nanda Wanninayaka
Multi-pockets: – Good morning, Mr. President. You don’t look that cheerful, do you? Is anything the matter, sir?
Pocket Billiards: – Nah! It’s these endless Netflix movies… They deprive me of a good night’s sleep. Don’t worry about me not being cheerful, young man. Either Mr. Double Pockets or Mr. Sherwood Pockets will cheer me up out of the blue within the next few seconds with some imbecilic remarks on some nonissue and the whole nation will forget their grievances. Ultimately, Facebookers will have a field day. What’s in the news, anyway? Put on that bloody TV, Multi-pockets, will you?
Chamuditha on Kudu TV: Good morning viewers, this is the hottest of the day. Mr. Double Pockets says that he has already won the Presidential Election that has not been even held. Yet, Mr. Double Pockets has ordered the most expensive Che Guevara-style double-pocket shirt and a pair of cargo pants from the capitalist United States to wear for the swearing-in ceremony at the crematorium in the Borella Cemetery.
Pocket Billiards: Didn’t I tell you, Multi-pockets? Didn’t I tell you? It was only a matter of seconds for this idiot of the Liberation Front to cheer me up. Didn’t I tell you so?
Multi-pockets: Yes, you did. But Mr. President, it’s no laughing matter. Presidential election is in the offing and you lost your seat too at the last parliamentary election. You are holding onto the office with no seat of your own in the House. You are here because the wild card your party played worked.
Pocket Billiards: Oh! Yes, yes, yes. I almost forgot. But I am the president, aren’t I?
Multi-pockets: Yes, Mr. President. Unfortunately, you are. And the opposition dudes say you have no ethical right to hold onto the office in the first place because you have been rejected by the entire nation!
Pocket Billiards: But I am constitutional, right? Thanks to Uncle Wily Pockets, I am the president. Who cares as long as it is constitutional?
Multi-pockets: But sir, you can’t win this election. Nobody likes you except Vajira and Range, not even your dear darling spouse will vote for you this time. Just two votes can’t make you the president, Mr. President.
Pocket Billiards: Can’t they? I never knew. Then we should act swiftly. Call the underworld, get the old tires ready, get the anal umbrella ready, get the Kandahar Kock Wrench ready, get the Fallujah Firehose ready, get the… … …
Multi-pockets: No! No!! No!!! Mr. President. These are not the days of the Vikings. You can’t go on killing people left, right, and center and blame it on the Vikings anymore like in the good old days, sir.
Pocket Billiards: I see, but democracy is bad for the people. It is not a foolproof system. Killers, rogues, rapists, lunatics, and real idiots can vote. Even you can vote.
Multi-pockets: The point of view is understood, Mr. President. But they say democracy is the best available form of government at the moment.
Pocket Billiards: Who says? Nonsense! Mark Twain has said, “If voting made any difference, they wouldn’t let us do it.” Voting doesn’t help the masses. It helps us, the rulers. Democracy is not good for the people. If it were, the rulers, us, would have already replaced it with something worse for them.
Multi-pockets: Twain hasn’t said anything to that effect to my knowledge, Mr. President. He has said only the first line you quoted.
Pocket Billiards: Hasn’t he? It is something that he should have said.
