High Priest of the Ziggurat Aligns Backyard With Pleiades

The thing arrived in a box far larger than any I had previously deigned to sit in. After a period of metallic clanking and quiet cursing from my staff, it stood upon my lawn, a strange, earth-toned ziggurat of molded plastic. My human called it a "climber." I called it an affront. It was an artificial mountain, a hollow idol to which the small, shrieking human was immediately drawn. I watched from the safety of the patio door, tail twitching in disdain, as the child scrambled up its sides with all the grace of a falling walrus. My curiosity, however, is a relentless master. That evening, under the cloak of twilight, I launched my expedition. The air was cool, the grass damp beneath my pristine white paws. The structure loomed, silent now. I gave the base a suspicious sniff. It smelled of factory air and impending rain. The textured walls, meant to mimic rock, felt slick and unnatural. I ignored the ladder—a device for the unsubtle—and flowed up the incline of the slide, my claws finding purchase in the plastic seams. I was a silent gray shadow ascending the mysterious peak. From the summit, the world was different. I was master of all I surveyed: the darkened lawn, the distant, shimmering streetlights, the sleeping houses of lesser creatures. It was here I discovered the two steering wheels. A sudden, profound realization struck me. This was no mere mountain. This was a lost temple, and these wheels were the keys to its ancient celestial alignment machine. I placed a paw upon one wheel. It turned with a satisfying, dull click. I was no longer merely Pete, the pampered house cat. I was Pete, High Priest of the Twilight Ziggurat, Keeper of the Cosmic Wheels. I spent the next hour turning the wheels, first one, then the other, carefully realigning the backyard with the Pleiades, a task the previous tenants had clearly neglected. The lower cavern, I decided, was not a hiding place but a sacred Kiva, a chamber for deep meditation on the migratory patterns of June bugs. This plastic monstrosity was not an affront after all. It was a holy site, and the small human was merely a noisy, unordained acolyte. It would require my constant supervision and ritualistic guidance, of course. A demanding job, but one for which I was uniquely qualified. My human, in their simple way, had finally provided me with a worthy purpose beyond meal times.