2011-08-25
Original: 2011-08-25 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Daughter (small girl with red hair): Daddy, is there a puppy heaven?
Father (sitting with daughter on his lap): There are two ways to go with this...
Panel 2:
Father: I can tell you there's no puppy heaven, and you may be sad about that.
Father: Or, I can say of course there's a puppy heaven.
Panel 3:
Father: But then you ask if there's a mouse heaven, and so say yes because there's no clear line of demarcation. Then it's bird heaven, then lizard heaven, then goldfish heaven.
Panel 4:
Father: Then it's worm heaven and slime heaven and amoeba heaven, because why not? They're alive too!
Panel 5:
Father: At that point, we might as well say amoebas go to heaven and dying cells in your body are going to heaven. Really, why shouldn't any self-replicating machine goes to heaven?
Panel 6:
Father: So now transposons go to heaven. So I guess gene sequences go to heaven? Now ideas are going to heaven? Is there a meme heaven for ideas that died?
Panel 7:
Father: And then you say to yourself, of course there's no idea heaven, and that's the crack in the dam before the flood. Transposons don't go to heaven, so maybe cellular life doesn't, and slime doesn't and bugs don't, and then...
Panel 8:
Father: Now there's not just a kid and puppy heaven, there's no heaven at all! And now I'm telling my daughter the only thing waiting beyond death is oblivion!
Panel 9:
Father: So, in answer to your question...
Father: Sally?
Panel 10 (daughter has wandered off to her mother in another room):
Daughter: Mommy, is there a puppy heaven?
Mother: Yes, but only for Mister Scruffles.
Votey:
Daughter: So Scruff is all alone?
Mother (thought bubble): Dammit!
Daughter (small girl with red hair): Daddy, is there a puppy heaven?
Father (sitting with daughter on his lap): There are two ways to go with this...
Panel 2:
Father: I can tell you there's no puppy heaven, and you may be sad about that.
Father: Or, I can say of course there's a puppy heaven.
Panel 3:
Father: But then you ask if there's a mouse heaven, and so say yes because there's no clear line of demarcation. Then it's bird heaven, then lizard heaven, then goldfish heaven.
Panel 4:
Father: Then it's worm heaven and slime heaven and amoeba heaven, because why not? They're alive too!
Panel 5:
Father: At that point, we might as well say amoebas go to heaven and dying cells in your body are going to heaven. Really, why shouldn't any self-replicating machine goes to heaven?
Panel 6:
Father: So now transposons go to heaven. So I guess gene sequences go to heaven? Now ideas are going to heaven? Is there a meme heaven for ideas that died?
Panel 7:
Father: And then you say to yourself, of course there's no idea heaven, and that's the crack in the dam before the flood. Transposons don't go to heaven, so maybe cellular life doesn't, and slime doesn't and bugs don't, and then...
Panel 8:
Father: Now there's not just a kid and puppy heaven, there's no heaven at all! And now I'm telling my daughter the only thing waiting beyond death is oblivion!
Panel 9:
Father: So, in answer to your question...
Father: Sally?
Panel 10 (daughter has wandered off to her mother in another room):
Daughter: Mommy, is there a puppy heaven?
Mother: Yes, but only for Mister Scruffles.
Votey:
Daughter: So Scruff is all alone?
Mother (thought bubble): Dammit!
Alt text
A ten-panel comic. A father holds his small red-haired daughter on his lap; she asks, "Daddy, is there a puppy heaven?" He muses, "There are two ways to go with this..." Over the next several panels he delivers an escalating internal monologue in close-up: if he says yes to puppy heaven, he reasons, then there must be a mouse heaven, bird heaven, lizard heaven, goldfish heaven, then worm, slime, and amoeba heaven ("they're alive too!"), then dying cells, then any self-replicating machine, then transposons, gene sequences, ideas, and a "meme heaven" for dead ideas. He realizes denying idea-heaven is "the crack in the dam before the flood" that collapses the whole chain, leaving "no heaven at all" and forcing him to tell his daughter that only oblivion waits beyond death. He finally turns to answer her, calling "Sally?"—but she has already wandered off. In the last panel she's asking her mother the same question; the mother replies, "Yes, but only for Mister Scruffles." Votey: in a black-bordered black-and-white panel, the daughter asks, "So Scruff is all alone?" and the mother, in a thought bubble, thinks, "Dammit!"
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.