The King of Hearts and Souls

La Commedia Doggia, or, Flaubie’s Inferno

Lord Siddhartha grew up in the lap of luxury for sure; all the legends remind us of this.

You cannot imagine.

Yet in the midst of this plenty, where it seemed as though every conceivable need had been met, and there was nothing more to want for, he was always questioning his good fortune, and the meaning of his life. Even as a tiny boy.

I remember the evening that Malini, Lord Siddhartha and I were curled up together in fine silk bedding after enjoying a day of heady pleasure with the best handmade toys, sweets, and every kind of plaything that could amuse a young child. His every request (like all children, he made unreasonable ones at times) had been addressed. He’d been carefully prevented from having contact with anyone who was ill, suffering, or emotionally upset. The king was highly effective at this because he had everyone screened by court psychologists and physicians upon arrival each morning to make sure they were in a good mood and of sound of mind and body. This, mind you, was a huge pain in the butt for the court, because King Sùddhodana was ahead of his time. He believed in back-up systems and redundancy.

There was hence a second group of psychologists and physicians appointed to audit the lead team to make sure they were OK. We were thus up to our patooties (a kind of floral Indian balloon trouser) in psychologists and physicians in that court. They stood ten deep at every event surrounding Lord Siddhartha, looking at people through weird thaumaturgical instruments of various kinds, consulting elaborate charts, and taking endless notes. Entrails were examined far too often even for my taste, and keep in mind, I’m a dog. Purifying incense was burned. Page boys were appointed to ferry the overflowing wheelbarrows of notes around behind the princes’ retinue. If anyone so much as said anything suspiciously negative or scratched the wrong place on their body, the notes were referred to. Heads nodded, tongues wagged, and prognostications were delivered. The guilty one would then almost invariably be asked to leave.

I used to refer to these consultations as the Conference of the Turds.