Installation 01.09.96

1.

All at once I found myself in the cold, early morning in the center of the sun-bathed village at Summer's Castle and its doors. No breathing soul wandered the roads around me, and I was accompanied only by my own steaming breath. I was sure not to dirty my shining leather boots in the dirt street for which the market had seen a pretty penny from me. The mercenaries on opposite sides of the ancient entrance slipped eyes at me and laid hands on their holsters. I silently entered the dark hall and noted the village men and women. The children drank their bottles and kissed and embraced one another. The adults, worn and aged, slumped in their seats or lay in melancholy slumber. I waded through the piles and crowds of lowly laborers. I might have looked a knight on a noble quest, if not for my shabby threads and worn leather hat. I finally stepped out of the dark and into the golden sunlight shining elegantly through the tremendous window behind the King and Queen. The King cast a firmly condescending glance upon me, unshaven cheek propped up by his large fist. The Queen of Summer, glowing and graceful, looked through my eyes and into my heart. She knew this cold. She knew this darkness, and she at once lifted her white hand and beckoned me closer. She produced from thin air a wooden cigar box and bid me farewell and much luck.

I started back down the dirt road in the crisp sunrise. I was keen to reveal the box's contents, and so I unlocked the hinge and peered inside. There I found flakes of ash, shreds of cedar, twigs of oak, and a bit of parchment. I unfolded the paper and written on it in gilded letters was a poem and a number:

Stood cold on Rehobeth shores,
Her loved ones close their doors,
And broken apart are they.

Ginger leaves and emerald oceans,
The white moons slow her motions,
And broken apart is she.

Bleeding hearts and fallen soldiers,
Please her tired eyes, the beholder,
And a thorny rose is she.

The fourth of seven and ninety-six,
Damned if ever a man could fix,
But a mourning boy are you.

07.04.96

And into the woods I went.