Long ago, when the stars hung a little closer to the earth and a dance could still coax rain from the clouds, people spoke the language of unseen things. The world was quieter then and to live well one had to be keen—keen enough to notice the Subtle when it hid in the footsteps of ants and whispered like wind through caribou fur. One had to notice when it was waiting in a thicket of thistles or wading in a mountain pond. One never knew just where it was hiding, only that, if one stayed sharp, if one paid attention, it would always reveal itself.
The irony of Subtle Things is that they are both difficult to find and eager to be seen.
Back then it had been a means of living. In a Subtle world, one did not get far without a knowledge of the Subtle Things.
The search for Subtle Things has always offered many rewards. In those Kronos-gobbled ages of long ago, the Subtle might lead a gatherer to a great bounty or a hunter to a site for the hunt. It might warn of poor weather or of trouble on the horizon.
Today, Subtle Things are not a requirement of survival, and so the Subtle Art is lost to the many, and only used by the few who choose to partake in the Game of Subtle Things.
To play the game, one must know the rules. There are not many to know, but before they are shared, a warning must be issued. The Subtle Game is not to be taken lightly, for every boon that might be received at the hand of the Subtle, dozens of curses are possible. The Subtle Game operates using forces that are considered too Subtle to understand, and as such once those forces have been invoked, they are not easy to banish. They will change you subtly but inevitably. In other words, once you decide to play, you become a player, and from that moment on, there is no way to revoke such a title.
The Rules
Rule 1: One may not play the game with the aim of a desired end. One must play for the purpose of playing.
Rule 2: One must abide by the Pact of Mutual Respect between the Keepers of Subtle Things and players of The Subtle Game.
Rule One is self-explanatory, and considering that it is impossible to play with any guarantee of a specific end, it is in most ways self-regulating. The rewards for good play are myriad, and when you pick up a trail of Subtle Things it can be near impossible to know what you will find at the end.
Players have listed their discovered rewards as chance encounters, treasures, granted wishes, and other general serendipities—watching a fledgling’s first wingbeats as it leaps from its nest or turning one’s head just in time to catch a lightning bolt rend the night sky in two.
In most cases the rewards are . . . subtle.
Rule Two is less clear and to a rookie of the game, there is one obvious question.
Who are the Keepers of Subtle Things?
This answer is best gleaned by once more looking back in time to those who had no choice but to play The Subtle Game. It does not matter where in the world one investigates, the earliest cultures in every part of the world all discussed the presence of spirits.
Not the lurking spirits of the departed—or not just them. But the spirits of the old world—the spirits of forests and streams, the keepers of paths and homes, the spirit of a fabled sword or a magic stone or a seabreeze or a beehive. These are the spirits which seemed to be manifestations of the land itself.
The spirits have had many names over the ages of man—angels, demons, kami, fae, gods, and djinn—perhaps you know them by these names or other names not mentioned here, or perhaps you dismiss the stories as nothing more than the naivety of previous generations.
For those who had found themselves intrigued by The Subtle Game, but upon reaching this explanation of the Keepers cannot move past their disbelief, an explanation is offered.
Does a tree possess a consciousness? The buried seed knows which way is up, and the tree knows when to drop its leaves. Just as a growing vine will reach up in grasping circles searching for a hold, a tree recognizes an infected branch and cuts it off from the rest of the tree to stop the spreading.
If all of these habits and behaviors of the tree were compiled, one might call this the pattern of ‘tree-ing.’
Now, suppose that such patterns are found within all things.
The pattern of a forest, the pattern of a pond, the pattern of you, the pattern of me. What if these patterns, in an inertial desire to maintain themselves and uphold their integrity, placed some aspect of themselves in charge of the maintenance of the pattern.
Is the pattern of you, in all its complexity, not upheld by that part of you that you consider ‘you’. That part of you does not beat your heart or digest your food, but it does protect the pattern of you which allows all of those things to continue on.
Perhaps that is not unique to human beings—only more apparent. Perhaps all things have these appointed Keepers of self-preservation. These Keepers are spirits.
Those spirits are the Keepers of Subtle Things. Subtlety is their very nature, and as such it by the actions of the Keepers that Subtle Things occur.
If you want to play, the Keepers must be accepted. It is up to the Player if they would prefer to think of them as the spirits of the old world, or instead subscribe to a more technomodern view in which they are understood as bits of code which are programmed to observe and maintain the rest of a specified program. The beliefs that Players maintain in regard to the Keepers are as various as Players themselves. It hardly matters, so long as the belief exists. After all, the Keepers are unavoidable in The Subtle Game and as such, so is Rule Two.
Look back into the world of myth, and it becomes clear that the Pact of Mutual Respect has been present for generations.
Offerings and prayers have always been a well-established part of engaging with the Keepers. Even when dealing with the more dangerous and difficult of them, fairplay was present. The djinn in the Middle East were bound by contracts—one only needed to be precise with their words. Riddle Keepers portrayed in the stories of Rumpelstiltskin and the Sphinx always held true to their words provided their riddles were answered correctly. And records of malicious Japanese spirits whose anger could be assuaged as long as a bow was delivered.
The key to the game is Attention. In order to play the game, you must stay sharp. The patterns of the Keepers are all around us, and carelessness is a quick path towards the interruption of those patterns. You cannot let a careless moment pass. No careless slip of the tongue, no careless step. Even a careless thought might be enough to create a Subtle influence in your actions that the Keepers would notice.
A single Subtle Thing is unassuming, but pile them atop each other and they can create terrible inconveniences. Pile up those inconveniences and they can become downright troublesome. Multiply enough troubles and they can become deadly. For this reason, the game can be exhausting and difficult and potentially even dangerous. It is not to be taken lightly.
But—if the Player is brave and patient and observant, both of themselves and of the world around, the rewards can be great.
Like all games a player will get better with practice. They will learn to not
ice the Subtle Things. They will learn to recognize the patterns of the world, and understand how to work with them, instead of treading carelessly where they might be interrupted. And as a player’s skills improve, and the Keeper of a nearby walking path or of their favorite shade tree is befriended, they will find that the Keepers use their skill with Subtlety to provide you with the aforementioned wonders. Just remember that the Keepers are proud, and like to be recognized for their work.
Should you heed the words of warning that you find here, should you learn the rules by heart, and learn to commune with the Keepers, then you will have all you need to play The Subtle Game. Listen carefully, watch closely, do not let a moment pass by unnoticed. Watch the pliés of sunlight at the water’s edge. Listen to the hum of a bumblebee or the piano drifting from your neighbor’s open window, smell the wet leaves of fall after a heavy rain, the lilac, the perfume of a passing stranger, and slowly, oh so slowly now, those subtle things will reveal to you the Game of Subtle Things.