Yay for setting the scene! And, this is actually based upon a real place.
One day when my sister and I were out hiking through the woods toward my college’s sculpture building, we stumbled across this graveyard, which was even more dilapidated than the one pictured here. We didn’t know it then, but as it turns out, the cemetery separated the scientific trails from the art trails, and as we continued our hike, we found many strange artistic installations, some of which were somewhat unsettling. One of these creepy installations was a row of trees, which had been splashed with red paint and wrapped in gauze in places. It was just as I passed these that one of the loud machines in the sculpture yard was turned on, which gave a mighty roar and scared the snot out of both of us. Later on down the trails, there was a large steel cage suspended above a creek, which had been torn and bent as though something had broken out of it.
As I continued with College, the cemetery and woods became a place for me to unwind, and I spent many hours eating lunch in the graveyard, or amongst the banks of the creek that wound through the woods. I even put a few of my own installations there, ranging from small stone cairns, to tree decorations, to werewolf prints. I’ve had a fondness for old graveyards ever since, and every year around Halloween, I place a mini-pumpkin in the graveyard.
And, on that somewhat morbid note, I hope everyone had a great holiday, and has a great new year!
