The Strange Dreams of Nobody in Particular

“The boy’s mother was a story teller, and when he was born she said, “I will tell him stories about himself and from these stories, he will come to know himself, which is the first thing all wise people do. And I will tell him stories about other people, so he will come to understand others, which is the second stretch of the road to wisdom. I will write these stories on the walls of his throne room, so that he will see them and consider them always as he rules.”

So begins the story of the Child Emperor and his rise to power. The story continues in a cycle of fifteen tales, told by five storytellers who embody each of the characters the Emperor meets along his journey. The cycle was modeled after the Major Arcana of the Tarot, and designed to be comprehensive no matter what the order of the tales. It was performed in the garden of Waters Elementary School in the summer of 2006.

The father held his son and said, “Son, your stories and your magic do not work here. There is no magic in this place.” The boy said, "No, there is magic everywhere. The magic is in me."

The Prince asked, “How do you rule it so well? I must know so that I can rule my kingdom as fairly.” The Child Emperor said, "There is no secret to it. I love my people."

“We have been seeking the soul of our tribe, a single people, who have peopled this land. But it is not the soul of the tribe that has birthed us and given us our souls. The tribe is just one piece of the land. The Land has a soul that is bigger than all of us, in which we are all part. I have come here to seek out the soul of the land.”

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