A Tale from Pete the Cat

The ceremony began shortly after the evening meal. My human, whom I shall call The Keeper for the purposes of this chronicle, retrieved a small, black case from a crinkling bag. It opened with a loud *snap*, a sound that spoke of cheap plastic and shattered silence. Inside, nestled in molded compartments, lay the artifacts: twelve gems of impossible geometry, gleaming in colors a respectable animal would never deign to wear. The Keeper consulted a sacred text, a small booklet filled with cryptic diagrams, their brow furrowed in a display of what they probably imagined was deep concentration. They selected the black tray—the altar—and began placing the gems according to the arcane patterns in the text. A squat orange piece here, a jagged green one there. It was a slow, clumsy ritual. I watched from my observation post on the arm of the sofa, my tail giving a single, contemptuous flick. This was no game. This was a summoning. Or perhaps a prison. The Keeper was attempting to contain the chaotic energy of these bizarre objects within the rigid confines of the grid. They fumbled, sighed, and then, as is their way, became distracted by a notification on their glowing rectangle, abandoning the half-finished rite on the coffee table. This was my moment. I descended from my perch with the practiced grace of a shadow. The altar was unguarded. I sniffed at a purple piece, shaped like some kind of angular serpent. It smelled of nothing but the factory that birthed it. No soul. No life. Pathetic. But as I nudged it with my nose, it shifted with a satisfying lightness. A gentle pat with my paw sent the piece skittering off the altar, its plastic form sliding beautifully across the polished wood floor until it vanished beneath the entertainment console. Ah. So that was their secret power. Freedom. One by one, I liberated the gems from their intended confinement. A zig-zagging blue piece was dispatched under the rug. A knobby yellow one was deftly hooked and flung toward the dark abyss of the hallway. This wasn't a puzzle to be solved; it was a cage to be emptied. The Keeper eventually returned, staring at the now-empty altar with a bewildered expression. They would never understand my work. I had disrupted their pointless ritual and restored the natural order of things: small, interesting objects belong in dark, inaccessible places. I retired to a nearby sunbeam, a silent guardian of chaos, and deemed the acquisition a resounding success. Not for the reasons the human thought, of course, but that’s hardly my problem.