The Altar, Part Two
Hope is annoyed. “But Otto, like Mr. Goat, you have so reversed the flow of this conversation that I’m giving you information — prior to hearing the secret you were so anxious to tell!”
Otto understands with a start. “I hardly noticed! Mr. Goat asked me: What is the purpose of dog poop? and I confidentially told him, it’s the dog’s way of cleansing his internal organs, but! More importantly, it’s his way of communicating with all the other dogs in the community. Since poop bears the olfactory tags of the identity of the pooper, his exact location, health, stud status — not to mention his opinion of the state of affairs of the brethren, and greetings or rebuke directed to particular individuals… For us, poop is the quintessential epistle!”
“Then,” Otto continues, “Mr. Goat flashed the scent of the most wonderful ‘attaboy!’ I had ever received, and I settled down to appreciate what he had to say. The secret is that long ago, long before the Rabbi taught the first dog how to speak, but well after the Tower to Heaven had fallen, humans and dogs had almost undecipherable means of communication. What he meant was that bipeds had words, where quadrupeds had turds.”
Hope is fascinated. “I’m hooked and leashed!” she exclaims, tail wagging. “Tell me more!”
Otto concurs: “My reaction also! It seems that around the time dogs learned to talk, humans began to experiment with alternate forms of communication — like poop — except, no matter how skillfully messages were encoded (in brown envelopes), they smelled so badly that, with impoverished olfactory senses, the content was entirely lost! And it had no effect, other than making the recipients, uh, seriously annoyed.”
And Otto continues, more and more enjoying his narrative: “Then with an arrogance unmatched since the Tower of Heaven, human scientists hatched a plan, and called it “Babel On Too”, where they would take this most intimate mode of communication and, instead of unfruitfully sharing it with their neighbors, create a technologically advanced network of World Wide Altars, interconnected by pneumatic tubes — like at the drive-in bank — all converging on a top secret giant tube, out of which all the collected messages of mankind would be regularly launched heavenward, into space (where the Almighty is thought to reside)!”
Hope: “So, let me get this straight. What the humans supposed to be prayer… was original sin writ infinite, taking poop, the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and hurling it back in the face of the Almighty?
Otto: “As their Savior warned, the problem is surely not what goes into a man’s mouth, but what comes out of it.
Hope is very attentive in her curiosity. “So what does Mr. Goat think will happen?” she asks. “Dark times for mankind?”
Otto sneezes. “Nothing less than Armageddon! And you know what?”
Hope: “What, Otto?”
Otto’s jaw opens into a guileless grin and he pants happily. “He appointed me First Caninical Prophet! And he told me that I must gather my brothers and sisters together and build a Great Ark, except this time only animals would be saved!”
Hope: “And all this because humans were uncomfortable talking with God?”
Otto does what, for him, amounts to a solemn nod. “All this because they forgot how to wish Him joy of the morning.”
“Otto, I hate to pee on your parade,” Hope says slowly, “but Mr. Goat is more than a few kibbles short of a happy meal.”
“I know,” Otto says reasonably. “That’s why he’s returned to Doc — who’s usually short a few bits.” Otto sighs long, and muses: “But for awhile, I have to confess, I was so hopeful.”
Hope: “That’s all right, Otto. So long as you have me, you’ll always have hope!” Now it’s Hope’s turn to grin. “So, when did you suspect Mr. Goat was playing too loose with the truth?”
Otto: “To be honest, I never much cared for his potty mouth!”