• The roaring thunder... the blazing lightning... these ancient forces prelude dirges come and gone. Dead songs, sung for the death of a family member, death of a friend; a saint... a lover. The cathedral organs moan a soulful tune... matching the erie symphony sung by the lonely heart. "I was a fool..." he mutters, cluching a green shard...

    Master artisians portrayed an ideal landscape, drawn on both sides of a glass pane, the world sparkled and glistened, and the painters had hoped they could create such a wondrous place. Despite the mutual sameness and mutual strangeness alike, they each painted the same picture on opposite sides of the window...the twin-tree hill depicted existed in some unknown country,or on another planet...or in another dimension that neither could attain in such puny physical forms. Days and weeks passed, and the painters stared at each other through the pane... that window into an ideal world for both. They dreamed and wondered at how they could create such a land...one they couldn't reach, yet was occupied by themselves. It did not occur to either of them to paint themselves into the scape, so in this way, they lived apart from the reality, but never realized this. Time passed. Angered at this sorcery, Neptune sent his manservant to destroy the painting. With the fury Neptune alotted him, he let out a mighty roar, dashing the pane into thousands of shards...some green, some blue, some of indescernable color. But the spell wrought into the painting would not be broken so easily. The artisians, with the painting dashed to pieces, gathered the remains and parted under the icy gaze of the servant, vowing to reunite at a time of deep sorrow for their land...

    The man at the altar could not, by his own strength, create such sorrow, for it must be felt by all residents of his land. Here, in the cathedral he waits, broken as the painting he once created...hollow, shuddering at the roaring thunder, crying out to his own silent god...a shell.