The Book of Otter: Heaven and Hell
Sunday, January 2, 2011 at 7:06PM | by Otter 
The loon shrieked every morning and every evening, whooping so that all the creatures had to calm the spirits of their ancestors who woke wary and searching for predators.
“This,” said a young beaver, who had a small family, “is intolerable. “I am sure if there is a hell, it is filled with loons.”
The resulting discussion on hell and what it contained naturally flowed in its majestic but short course to the ocean of heaven and what it contained.
“I think heaven is filled with fish,” said the young beaver.
The fish privately thought it contained no beavers.
An old and rather patronizing-looking falcon said that heaven was rather the presence of God.
Everyone nodded solemnly.
A small squirrel asked impertinently where then God was not and whether anything could be there if God was not.
“Ahh,” said the falcon, looking wise. “God is so powerful he can sustain things that are without actually being there.”
“I thought,” said his mate cooly, “you said that God can never not be in all places because then he wouldn’t be omnipotent. Ergo, hell is not a place.”
“Ahh, you see,” he started in that tense way that tiresome people have when they are prepared to talk all night rather than admit that they do not know something. As usually happens in such cases, the rest of the creatures got rather embarrassed and left them to it, and the falcon and his mate are quarreling to this day. You rarely see them out and about together.
A field-mouse muttered something about there not being any falcons in heaven.
One of the doves said that heaven was where her mate was. Her mate privately resolved to go to hell, having been rather nagged that morning in reference to some nesting duties that had not gone according to her vision of the straight and true.
The Otter meanwhile was gnawing a bit of old bone in a thoughtful way, and had stuck it into his mouth like a pipe. He hummed an old sea-shanty.
“No matter the methods that you employ
(hum-dum-a-lung, hum-dum-a-lung, ho-hobby-hoy!)
Damnation comes on you with the same grace as joy
(hum-dum-a-lung, hum-dum-a-lung, ho-hobby-hoy!)
Sip on your heaven and choke on your hell
(hum-dum-a-lung, hum-dum-a-lung, ho-hobby-hoy!)
Which one you have swallowed is easy to tell
(hum-dum-a-lung, hum-dum-a-lung, ho-hobby, etc.)
Perverse is the wind when it blows to your sails
(hum-dum-a-lung, hum-dum-a-lung, ho-hobby-hoy!)
But blessed be the wind when you show it your tail
(hum-dum-a-lung, hum-dum-a-lung, etc.)
Tuck up your tunics and unburthen your soul
(hum-dum-a-lung, hum-dum-a-lung, ho-hobby-hoy!)
If you die honestly, you will die whole
(hum-dum-a-lung, hum- etc.)
Pardon comes freely if you do not offend
(hum-dum-a-lung, hum-dum-a-lung, ho-hobby-hoy!)
And they make a paradise who repair and who mend
(hum-dum-a-lung, etc.)
Swim in the river or fly in the air
(hum-dum-a-lung, hum-dum-a-lung, ho-hobby-hoy!)
The citizen makes his society there
(hum-dum etc.)
If you’ve coin in your trouser or food in your boot
(hum-dum-a-lung, hum-dum-a-lung, ho-hobby-hoy!)
The mirror will show you eternity’s root
(hum etc.)
He was never really all that helpful in these circumstances.
Book of Otter, Heaven, Hell in Personal Reflection 
Reader Comments (2)
The Otter hums a lot like Pooh. (NOT the Disney version.)
And Pooh was a lot more comfortable with imponderable questions, being a Bear of Very Little Brain. Must be something to do with the humming. Resonates with the sound of the Universe creating. Or something.