Before history, after the planet was decanted from universal fluid but long before crops, when organization came slowly, Prometheus was in power. Man-maker after all, he’d given the goods away by the time he came to form people.

He gave plants the ability to make food and air. Birds got flight. Fish were endowed with the power to breathe in water. Insects were provided armor; their exoskeletons also limited their size, or they would have taken over immediately.

To bears went patience. Elephants got long memory. Cats were equipped with night vision and balance. Dogs were fashioned as empathic opportunists.

(Whatever wasn’t created, named and characterized, that which remained after Prometheus finished, is called cancer: chaotic immortal life without gift.)

The last creatures made by Prometheus were people. It’s a matter of debate whether humans were fashioned from stellar material, or from bits of earth mixed with ocean which still contained motes of heaven, but it’s generally understood that people were made in the god’s image after the divine gifts had already been dispensed.

So Prometheus looked upon his last creation and he pondered.

He gave people language.

But that wasn’t enough. Speech was mastered too readily by women, and it worked too slowly. The creatures needed more than verbal skills. Prometheus decided to give them the ability to control fire.

Which meant he’d have to steal some formfire. The problem with that plan, the challenge before him, was that the basis for all earthly fire was a bit of the sun that simmered in Jupiter’s den, and security was tight around it.

He recruited aid. In exchange for an assurance of warmth, Cat accompanied him, and showed him the way to the den in the dark. In exchange for the promise of cooked food, Dog came with them. For while they could sneak in, Cat-led under cover of darkness, they had to wait for daylight to leave with their prize. The flame was too visible at night.

As dawn blushed into the eastern sky, Prometheus took a live ember from the perpetual fire, wrapped it in a fennel stalk, and dashed with Cat and Dog back toward people. The alarm was given. The ways were obscured by storms and clouds of divine wrath. Then Dog’s nose found the path for them; it didn’t matter that they were surrounded by dense white mists of rage, for Dog’s nose always saw a vivid world.

That’s how it was, in the beginning. That’s how people got language and fire. That’s why people have cats and dogs. For the warmth of the hearth, cats agreed long ago to be the one wild thing that lives intimately with us. For the savoriness of cooked food, dogs decided to be… well, exactly what we want them to be.

A few days pass. Of course I continue to walk the dog. And usually the dog, who is getting on in age, starts eagerly and runs out of steam in a few blocks. But lately, since meeting the odd arched cat, the dog acts rejuvenated. Pulling on the leash like a four-year-old.

I let her lead the way today. I decide it’s time to find out if there is a destination, with all that pulling. I give the animal its head as they say.

I’ll admit I’m a little surprised when I realize that we’re aiming for the cat’s path. The dog is reversing our usual direction and heading right back to where we met that macho little beast.

With tail sweeping and nose ahead, my elderly pet pulls me uphill. She doesn’t slow until we get to the end of the path where the actual encounter took place. Then, I learn, we are to skirt around – north, west, and south again – like it matters from which direction we approach. Maybe it does.

The dog leads, and I follow. The cat is not to be found, by us, this time. I won’t be surprised if we look again. I won’t be surprised if I never figure out what we’re doing.

Today we don’t see the yellow cat. The dog squats and defecates and I as usual pay attention and pick up the shit in a plastic bag, and we return home.

It strikes me that I observe my dog’s shit more closely than I ever did my kids’. That’s not exactly true; I seriously noted kidshit until the babies were well trained, but that was less than three years each. I’ve been noticing the color, texture, and fragrance of my dog’s leavings for over a dozen years now, and I’ll only stop when she dies.

Talk about an intimate relationship! In some ways, more so than with kids. Except dogs don’t live that long. We figure a pet won’t last more than a decade or two. We miss them when they’re gone, of course, but we never expected otherwise.

Besides, dogs don’t think about death. Cats don’t worry about tomorrow. Only people say goodbye.