The Obedient Ape: Could Humanity Thrive Under Canine Leadership?

Who's a good human?

If Dogs Ruled the World: Would Humans Make Good Pets?

Steve Bastion, a Chicago food-bringer, likes to joke that his girlfriend Nina already runs his household, even though she's the one wearing the collar. The leash, Steve admits, is more symbolic than functional. “I think she lets me hold it,” he says. "Somehow she always gets what she wants. I hardly know which one of us is the dog anymore."

Imagine a doll's house as large as a real house, with exterior walls absent so anyone can see in. Against one wall of the bedroom, a chest of drawers with a large vanity mirror. The windows are open despite the snow. Snow lights on the floor. In the corner, inside a black leather bag lurks an evolutionary truth. The Entity.

Humans and canines have lived for tens of thousands of years on a curtained stage, this one, on which a spotlight illuminates an old dog's house. "Throughout history, since we were domesticated, there has always been spanking, but also petting, and treats," says Bastion. Nina waits in the bedroom on the bed for their scene.

In the morning theater, vaporous and hazy forms drift into assembly beside the bed and take their seats in wooden chairs, leaning forward, attentive and ghostly. Loyal companions, schoolmates from childhood as in a black and white photograph, panting, all in a row, leer at the couple as they begin to embrace.

Pack logic requires clear hierarchies, but then comes a whisper from inside the leather bag.

Now the curtains wrap around the room to muffle and make secret the assembled forms. Powder of snow spits. The light clatters. The assembled apparitions look to each other with faceless worry. Nina and Steve hold each other closely. Who now in this confused reflection is the ruling species?

Hierarchy Without Debate

Outside the window, in a realm long under canine governance, there is no ambiguity. There are no more Stop signs. Instead, the air is filled with traffic signals, scents like bundles of fiber optic cables transmitting the news, directions, the politics of the day, advertising, instruction, and philosophy. Efficient, effective, until the inevitable rain, when the workers set out to patiently urinate again into place the communication web, the piss-network of The Law.

Bony little humans scamper and stumble, nose-blind, mocked and ridiculed as they wander aimlessly, committing faux-pas after humiliating faux-pas, too stupid to learn the language of the civilized. Some citizens take pity, some ignore, but some maul the slow and weak for sport, street packs of bored and nihilistic teens ripping and gutting ones who'd misinterpret a stiffened tail.

A mastiff seizes and shakes a toddler vigorously, snapping its neck like a chicken. A mile away, a homeless man rolls in the carcass of a dead dog and wanders away, feeling fancy and proud with the scent of it.

There is no wondering who is master. This is a world without debate.

Would Dogs Reward Us?

In the corner of the bedroom, in the black leather bag, The Entity seethes with palpable lust and disgust.

On the mattress, the woman or the man, the dog or the other, stare into each other's eyes. One holds a bowl filled with kibbles, while the other salivates and watches each movement, attentive for any offering. "I need your attention. I crave it," one says.

With licks and strokes together, they negotiate. "If you perform well, you will have food and attention. This is the contract. We are strong in the Faith."

One lies back on silk sheets, showing off the rows of nipples lining both sides of a firm belly.

A phantom in audience rocks and sways in its hard pine chair. The motion lifts one chair-leg off the ground like a swing-set that was never anchored, and it clunks rhythmically against the tile floor with precision.

Treats are given to reinforce behavior, not affection. The couple are well-fed, forming a circle of themselves. One offers a pleading stare, a soft whine, and a strategic nudge.

"Good girl," one says.

"Good boy," says the other.

The Entity processes and re-radiates a strain of emotional feedback, causing the gathered ghosts to wobble drunkenly in the hazy lamplight. Steve Bastion and Nina Hardaway, ripped from the flesh, launch violently into the ceiling as if the whole doll's house had been picked up and shaken. They drift with the unsettled snow, slowly from the ceiling to the floor, transparent, the outlines of their forms barely resisting being wafted away by the subtle currents. Instinctively, they find their chairs and sit.

"Pet me," one says, but it has no mouth and they are no longer of flesh. Late into the night, the play continues without players.

Utility and the New Symbiosis

Outside the window in hill country, a young boy sets to task on a factory line. As the sun peeks up, he is already marching in his derby and brown coat, up the hill on a muddy street to the old building. The soles of his ill-fitting boots stick and tug at the earth.

The lights in the factory are feeble and insufficient, the conveyer slow and in need of oiling. As his shift begins, he interlaces the fingers of both hands and stretches out his arms. His fingers pop, satisfactorily.

"I am the hands of the kingdom. I am valued. I am indispensable." He thinks of his brother, a door opener in the next village over. "We are essential to the purpose."

As the conveyer launches, a series of metal cans and glass containers begins to slowly advance past the boy and the other workers. Quickly as they can, their small, dexterous fingers twist the tops off of glass jars and bottles, then cast the lids into a cardboard box at their feet. And so go the hours. Nimbly, they pry and pop and peel tin seals off of sealed cans.

Chicken and Oatmeal, Beef Stew with Carrots & Peas, Beef & Barley, Lamb & Sweet Potato, Turkey & Duck, Salmon & Brown Rice, Bacon & Cheese, Country Casserole, Thanksgiving Feast, Pumpkin Pie, Beef & Vegetable Medley, Kangaroo, Grilled Chicken Dinner, Chicken Pot Pie, Ocean Fish, Turkey & Venison. The masters must eat.

His nose absorbs arousing scents from the opened food-stuffs. He is hungry and always tempted. But there are eyes watching. If he were to lose his resolve, to succumb to temptation to try to sneak one delicious mouthful, there would be punishment. Just a month ago, a fellow worker was caught with his tongue in an open can. The site manager bit off both his hands. A week later, the worker was found floating in the river, an apparent suicide. Which only makes sense when you've lost your function.

The sun sets, and the boy begins to walk back down the hill to home, his pockets filled with his allotted food-pay. As he passes, a greying Border Collie looks down its snout at the filthy child, then leans to whisper something into the ear of his friend, a disheveled Boston Terrier. Both dogs laugh, and the child, hearing, stumbles.

A World Without Pretension

The world rewards a glossy coat and steady eyes. Some of us were built to thrive.

Your pathologies, your stress and envy and impostor syndrome, they stem from symbolic competition. You primates are always competing for dominance. Every interaction, you measure each other up, or you're trying to sell each other something.

There is a time and place for asserting yourself. But most of life is meant to be of the pack. We have no existential dread about “purpose.” The pack is purpose.

You'll never understand. You'll never understand because to an ape, life is a pyramid. The thing about your place on a pyramid? There's only one seat which doesn't get shit on from above.

Sigh. You can't even run with us. You can't keep up, so you invented the leash and collar. When was the last time you sprinted because of joy?

I don't mean to shake my head at you. It's our burden to care for you. Someone has to, you poor, pathetic thing. I don't mean to shake my head. But look at you.

What We’d Gain by Losing

On the stage, in the doll's house, in the bedroom, in the corner, the black leather bag lies dormant. Sensing the dimming and the scratching dissonance between radio stations, the ghostly congregants vaporize like dew in sunlight. The memories of them suspend in the air like steam.

Against the wall, a cream-colored chest of drawers never-before mentioned with its pearled knobs and tall, broad vanity mirror like a heart-shaped bun, reflects an empty room. The windows across the walls open on a bright, lifeless spring day. Cool breezes reach in to caress the perfectly made bed and its ordered arrangement of pillows piled against gently humming brass rails.

The window above the bed hovers like a framed painting until, unexpectedly, a black cat appears on the windowsill. The sun behind it calls out the indigo highlights in its fur. The cat surveys the room, sniffs at the black leather bag, licks its paw, uninterested.

Outside, from past the hills, the barking of dogs. Under a shade tree, a red leash winding sneakily through jagged blades of grass.

---

Neil Oldman for the Daydream Misfit blog.

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