Parallel Dogs

He told her that the dog was dead. She was very upset and said that the dog couldn’t be dead, because she could still hear it barking in the backyard. They went to the back door but the dog wasn't there. He told her that the dog can live on in her imagination, but that it isn’t alive in reality anymore. She asked him if the dog was alive in heaven. He told her that if there was heaven then the dog was there, still barking in the backyard. She opened the door, saying that she wanted to let the dog in then because it was cold outside. He told her that it wasn’t cold in heaven, but she got upset and said that the dog was cold, because if there was a backyard just like this one in heaven then it could also be cold in heaven. She called out to the dog. He told her that if the dog was in heaven then it couldn’t also be here on earth. She started to cry and said that maybe this was hell because the dog was dead here and it was in the cold on earth and they couldn’t help it. He shut the door and said that this was not hell, because dogs don’t go to hell and so the dog couldn’t have died here. She said that this was now hell because the dog was gone, and because they could imagine a better world like earth where the dog was still alive but very cold and barking to be let in. He said that this couldn’t possibly be hell, because the dog’s body was still buried in the backyard. He pointed to the mound and the little cross he had put up in the backyard. They went out and looked at it. He told that this was earth, and that earth is full of life and death and we like to invent categories to separate the good from the bad, but that we often get confused by our own categories and think of them as parallel worlds. She didn’t understand this, and said that she didn’t like living with so many parallel worlds. He told her that the way to stop getting trapped in parallel worlds was to remember that there are only actually parallel lives. There are hundreds of thousands of dogs in the world and when one dies another is quickly born. And that there is a little girl and her father talking about this very same thing right now in Shanghai, becuase their dog has died too, and they too are coming to the same conclusion, that there are many dogs in the world, and he is already putting on his shoes to go to the kennel to find a new parallel dog. She ran inside and returned with his shoes. She told him to put them on quickly, because the man in Shanghai has already got his on and they might get to the kennel first and take the last parallel dog. That’s ok, he said, putting on his shoes. They have to drive all the way from Shanghai.