A Whale of a Tale: Day one in Hell

La Commeddia Doggia, or, Flaubie's Inferno

There we were, Siddhartha and I.

Hell all around us like a bad bad birthday party.

The first thing that happens to you in hell is, you lose all your clothes. Poof! They’re gone. I don’t know why that happens. Frankly I could give a good damn, because as a dog I don’t wear any clothes; and this gives me a bit of an edge (which quite frankly is essential when you’re dealing in hell) because it doesn’t startle me or make me feel weak and vulnerable to walk around naked. Humans, on the other hand, I have noted, are consistently freaked out by this, and when they suddenly discover that they’re naked and in hell they get very very upset. I often get the impression that being naked bothers them more than being in hell, not sure why. I think that being in hell seems a bit more familiar than being naked.

Anyway, it turned out it wasn’t so easy to throw Lord Siddhartha off with something that obvious. He was pretty unflappable on average. He merely gazed around and said, looking at his dangling wiener, “What's the deal with this no-clothing thing?”

“Yeah, I forgot to tell you,” I replied. ”Everyone loses their clothes once they get to hell. First thing.”