by John White

Created on: December 29, 2009

This is a FEGHOOT. It ain’t supposed to be funny until the end.

It was to be a routine trip to Mars. Seven months of space travel reduced to a long controlled sleep with the aid of cryogenics technology. This would be the third time the seven astronauts made the excursion and Major Tim Denton expected to wake from his sleep to see his fellow astronauts all greeting him. Instead, they were all dead. All except him of course. What had happened? Why had they died and not him?

He looked out the view port expecting to see Mars, but in its place was Earth, except the continents were in the wrong place. In fact, the terrain didn't look at all like Earth, yet there was an obvious atmosphere.

He glanced at the chronometer, 2089. He had been asleep for fifty-one years. There was no option but to land, wherever he was. With no base to refuel after touchdown he decided to just open the hatch and exit or die. He had no way to return to Earth so why bother testing the atmosphere.

Amazingly, he could breathe. He saw people everywhere who looked just like him. Hundreds approached his craft, obviously out of curiosity. Tim stepped down and approached a middle-aged man.

"Hello," Tim said.

"Hello," the man replied.

"You speak English," Tim said.

"You speak Canine," the man replied.

"Canine? Is that what you call your language? What's the name of this planet?"

"Yes, Canine is our language. The great masters taught us millenniums ago. You are on the planet, Dog."

"Dog?"

"Yes-Dog. Hey buddy-"

"My names Tim Denton," Tim interrupted.

"Mr. Denton," the man said. "Can you hang on a minute?"

Then every man, woman and child in Tim's view, thousands, he estimated, faced away from him and knelt down. In unison, they all let out a terrific howl that hurt Tim's ears so badly, he had to cover them.

Then, again in unison, they all rolled over, sat up, begged, and panted with their tongues hanging out. After a few minutes of this strange behavior, they stood and continued what they were doing as if nothing had happened.

Tim was astonished. He approached the man, again.

"What just happened? Why did all of you act that way?"

The man looked incredulous. "Act that way? My good man, we were praying to the seven gods."

"Seven gods?" Tim asked.

"Yes, our gods are the seven holy dogs of the planet Dog-Rover the Wise, Spot the Brave, Spike the Dedicated, Lassie the Fair, Toto the Good, Biff the Strong and Butch the Odd. Each day we pray four times to one of our gods. Today is Tuesday, so we pray to Spot the Brave."

Tim couldn't believe it. "So, you pray to these dogs? This is your religion?"

"Yes," the man said.

"Well," Tim said, "that's odd. So why do you pray to certain dogs on different days. Why not pray to all of them?"

The man smiled and answered. "Because," he said. "Every day has its dog."

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