"I am trusting you to watch my cat that I have made. I have affairs that demand my attention," she told the Stringeater one night when all there was was night, endless and serene.

"The kitten is terribly unruly. See that it doesn't find any mischief," she told the portly Stringeater when he was much, much more than a monster for children and the unkempt.

"As you command," he replied and he took the small sleeping cat, disbelieving. It was barely a handful; just fluff and mist. It rolled over in his hands, bared its soft belly and yawned. Around the kitten's neck was a heavy collar and a thick chain.

"Surely this is a joke at my expense," he balked when left alone. "Am I not busy as well? Have I nothing better to do than to guard this small silly dreamer?" He said this for he had never seen a cat. It was newly made and without reputation.

It was not quite true that he was so busy. He had knit almost everything by now, sewn together all the pieces, and his work had been praised. All that was left at the bottom of his sack were his needles and a skein of the plainest yarn imaginable. It had no pleasing place in the rest of the pattern and he had left it out to fashion into socks, or perhaps mittens.

He was not busy, but his fingers were tired of fine work. He cut a length of this plain yarn and used it to tie the chain of the cat to his ankle so it would not wander away if it awoke. Then he sat down and hummed to himself, converting the yarn from skein to ball. The yarn was coarse and uneven; strong as dried gut in some places, delicate as ashes in other. He sighed and realized that it was so uneven that nothing more useful than a rag could be made. However even that would be something, for the motion of the act is soothing to one who enjoys knitting and lives alone. The skein was larger than it looked and creating the ball took many nights when all there was was night, endless and serene.

The cat woke to his song and stretched. It yawned and licked itself. It rolled and stretched some more and then purred softly to itself, still half-asleep and still half-dreaming. It watched the Stringeater who was then still in favor, an artisan of merit, and not the mere terror of children and the unkempt. The ball of yarn was slow to take shape and the cat watched it alertly, lashing its tail.

In the end, the Stringeater finished this chore and decided to rest before continuing, still unsure of what to make with the poorest yarn imaginable. It had no luster, the color was dull, it would not keep you warm, it scratched and held no magic nor charm to his eye. He set aside the ball of yarn and laced his fingers over his swollen stomach to sleep.

Instantly the cat rose to its feet, arched its back and padded over to the ball. It sniffed at it. It licked it. It bumped the ball with its nose and The Ball Moved. Pausing to groom itself, it thought about this new development. It batted at the ball with its paw, Moving It again. The cat swayed its tail and thought to itself about this further. Then it threw itself at the ball and tumbled about, pouncing and playing. Playing as nothing had ever done before. The ball began to come apart, fraying, tangling itself around the cat as well. All the while the Stringeater snored and slept soundly, fingers knitting at nothing.

The ball rolled away, out of reach and the kitten strained at the chain and collar which held fast. It padded back to the slumbering Stringeater and promptly gnawed through the yarn around his ankle. Now free, the cat resumed playing with the ball, chasing it about merrily and pulling it apart as it did so.

"Where is my cat?" she asked, waking the Stringeater. He looked down at his ankle and the kitten was gone. He looked around and saw that not only was the kitten gone, but so was the ball of poorest yarn that he had spent so long making.

"I do not know and I do not care. Your beast has stolen my finest yarn from me. I was saving it for the most special addition to the final work. Now it is lost and all is ruined."

"Liar," she said with a smile for she was gentle with the truth, "You were sleeping."

"No, I was thinking what to do with this, my finest yarn. It would have been my most glorious creation ever. Your own senseless creatures would have paled in comparison."

"Oh? And what did you plan to make? What more could you have added to this fine work of yours?" She watched him for his reaction and his fingers moved on their own, nervously knitting at nothing.

"I was -" he began, thinking quickly, "I was saving that supple and gilded thread - that sweet silk - to give life to the finished piece."

"And so you shall, I promise. I owe you that much for your loss."

He was surprised by her ready acceptance of this lie. Yet the Stringeater was greedy, and so he felt the urge to press for more. "It was my last yarn. I will need more of your precious hair to spin it again, you realize." He said this and looked over her myriad locks, now grown back from shearing. Endless possibility curled and tangled there and he was hungry for it. Her eyes flashed.

"You ask for too much, and I am a fool for learning from my own creation." She had seen her creature playing with the ball and learned the nature of Play; of this act that the kitten itself had brought into the world. She had Played with the Stringeater and was sworn to her promise, but she would not continue this game any longer.

She removed his face to remember him by and sent him howling to the earth of his own design. Mad, not knowing himself, he wandered as a demon. Endlessly he will seek his lost threads until the ball of poorest yarn is returned to him.

She found the cat, still chasing after the ball, endlessly playing with it across the sky, endlessly rending it into bits and snippets. She took these bits of yarn and string as souls and set them living about the earth, tangling with each other, knotting themselves and finally fraying to pieces in death.

She found the cat and told him, "You will push the moon and shred it to souls. You may do this as long as you wish for I have made you and your play does make me smile."

The cat sat and licked his paw to wash his face before speaking, "And when it is spent? What will I then play with?"

"It will be your choice to gather those souls again and spin the yarn to make the skein and form the ball that is your toy. When you tire of this, the folly of life will end. You may always choose to stop and the Stringeater will gather them himself and regain his memory."

"I care nothing for what he does or does not do," thought the cat to himself, "but I am enjoying this for now." He rubbed against her ankles and chased after his ball.

When the moon has waned utterly and all the souls have scattered onto the earth into babies and other new life, the cat pauses to lick and groom himself, thinking about the Stringeater, "I care nothing for what he does or does not do," he says, "but I am enjoying this for now."

He then collects the dead and the dying, often having to rescue them from the Stringeater until he has enough souls to spin into new yarn, slowly rebuilding his toy.