I was born in the year of 1282, in the very early spring, just outside the Sicilian city of Palermo, but had no recollection of it since my father had fled with his small family soon after my birth.  Though the province at the time was mainly Sicilian in race and culture, it was then ruled by French monarchs, whose presence often caused an air of resentment amongst those whom they ruled...

     “Listen my infant ones,” father would dramatize, waving his arms frantically while in the telling. “We fled out of fear for all that was ours, for our very lives we would forfeit if it were not so. Oh, the death that rained about our very feet that day!”

     “Be thoughtful,” I remember my Father teaching me early one spring morning many years ago, after one of the lambs had been mangled by some unknown predator.  “Do not rush to repulse that which frightens you, face it, confront it, control it, dominate it.  For what you may imagine may not be the reality.”

"Enjoying your feast," a low, unknown voice spoke near them from a darkened corner of the tavern, close and rude.  My Father took a sip from the flask before him, wiped his mouth with his light-brown shirtsleeve, and replied without looking up, down, nor sideways, "You are a damn fool if you thought I didn't see you there, skulking like a waif begging for my scraps."

     "Observe the signs, Jacabus," my Father spouted not more than a month hence, his demeanor taking a more serious, more stoic tone than usual.  "Be cautious of what you see.  Be aware of the winds that blow across your perception, do not let them sway you toward fruitless paths.”

     “What is it, Father,” I remember replying, watching a troubled expression flow across his face.  He suddenly looked old, worried, and distressed by some distant memory.  He often had a melancholy air about him, and I had learned to give him a wide berth in those times of worry, but he seemed to have a need to express his thoughts that day.

Darkness filled my mind as I slipped into a chasm of chard dreams.  Dark thick smoke drifted past my subconscious, its rancid odor filled my senses and dulled my mind.  For a time I was lost, disoriented, traveling aimlessly through a dream of thick fog.