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Introductory Text

The Ancient Art of Subtlety
The Cat's Narrative Part 03 57th Post Posted 17 May 2016 at 00:18:07 EDT Link to original

To hunt prey, to taste righteous lifeblood, you must simply become an ordinary part of the world.

Look around. What is happening right now? Nothing at all. Yet the leaves rustle, the grass sways, the birds call, the gnats dance. All of this is just a part of the world. If you become a part of the world, you become nothing at all. You become invisible. If you are not part of the world, the world becomes ten thousand things. This is misfortune.

It is easy enough to become invisible if you stay still, if you hide. But staying still and hiding aren't enough to catch prey. You must seek and strive. How do you seek and strive while remaining an ordinary part of the world? How do you exert your will without disrupting the world? How do you move along with the will of the world? This is the mystery of hunting. This is the mystery of subtlety.

This is the greatest of all mysteries.

Consider the mouse. It is moving through the leaves, looking for food. You must not disturb it. Do as little as possible. Wait. Watch and listen. If it moves away, move with it. Follow it. If it moves closer, stay still. Practice non-interference. Let it come. It should be thinking happy thoughts of food and comfort when you strike. When you snare it in your claws, do not eat it right at once. Let it struggle and give up its lifeblood. Practice non-action. You need not kill it. Let it die.

To be subtle is to move with the will of the world. Do not move against the will of the world. This brings misfortune. Touch lightly the course of things without disturbing it. Touch it gently at points of inflection, and it will move as you wish. This brings great fortune.

This is the ancient Art of Subtlety, taught to us by our form. I must follow it if I am to find any answers to the mystery of the Oily Ones, the mystery which has obsessed me since the death of my kitten. I must know why they both feed us and kill us, why they are kind and motherly but also unnatural and abominable.

I have decided that I will go into one of their hiding places. After much investigation, I have chosen a place. It is a very large and horrible hiding place, a sort of mountain of box-like shapes colored by unnatural light. It emits a powerful and unholy odor of decadence. What is more, there is something which makes it different from all other oily places I have ever seen.

It seems that some of our kind live within this place. I have seen them from a distance, going in and out of it, using small portals. They are different than those of our kind that I have known. It seems that some of the Oily Ones' corruption has mutated them. They are very fat and slow. Their faces are stupid and sullen. They fear nothing. They have lost subtlety. I am not even sure they are truly of our kind.

I will go inside. I must be subtle. To be subtle, I must become a part of the world. I may have to become a part of the abomination itself. I may find death, bloody death as my kitten did. But I will hunt to the heart of this mystery. And I will sleep again.