IN SEARCH OF THE NINE OF CLUBS

or I have been picking up used ground cards since 14 February 2003. Ground cards, they are these lonesome playing cards that fly around our streets. Unlinked they have lost their function. Without intent they lie on the asphalt where they regularly cross our everyday paths. I only pick up single cards and have tried in the last couple of years to get a whole deck together so I can play the German card game skat. Everybody in Germany knows that you need 32 cards to play this game. Each card that I pick up reflects the uselessness of the remaining 31 cards. But now I have 31 different cards – only one is missing in my quest for happiness: the nine of clubs...
My sporadic search for ground cards took me from Muenster to Alabama and from Mexico City to Heilbronn. Many queens and jacks of hearts found their way into my collection of ground cards, plus# all the aces – it's just hampered by the nine of clubs. I even started six different decks with the ground cards I've found. And now, in 2012, I hope to find the much sought-after nine of clubs somewhere on the ground to finalise my first deck of cards.
That is why my search for the nine of clubs will dominate my views on the ground and my speculative collections of lost items that wait to be discovered in public and semi-public places. The gaming season is opened! From time to time you will find here some ground level explanations from the bottom of my inner constraint to find the missing 32nd card.
I wish all of you a sunny spring
Ruppe Koselleck
for Der Meisterschüler
German version here
all cards you will find here