The Painting

The thoughts that are standing dormant in one's mind as the dark and disturbing images that were in a nightmare one had the night before. The nightmare that one describes is of which is a dark alley in Chicago--a ghetto of where one has walked many times, but yet one finds the place quite alien because the paintings on the wall described a horror of an unimaginable nature.
   As one closely looks at the painting, these thoughts that are in one's mind are that of a darkening paranoia; yet of which one is going into a dark descent--into a place where the hungry ghosts dwell inside the darkest hells one calls the human mind's worst nightmare. The thoughts that one pens in a journal about this sinister picture will make another think that one has lost their mind, but the horrors one speaks of is the philosophy of a madman who one calls an art form.
   The thoughts and images that one is often tormented by are the horrors that are seen in this painting--of the words written that are penned by the Shades of Hades within the thought patterns of what are known as the Hungry Ghosts. The supernatural demons have long so fed on the nightmarish thoughts of the locked up individuals who live at 5 east as known by the Mason City locals--a place for the prisoners of illness will live, or to be haunted by the Hungry Ghosts. For the reason that one is locked up here is that one spoke of the painting--the painting which tells a tale of horror which will not die.
   The night that one spoke of this painting of the blasphemy was in a church, but not by his mouth; by his words that he penned in a journal that was bound by human flesh and pig's blood--the priest knew of this book by the painting done by the Shades of Hades. The words that are penned by Hades are what is found in the book of the Dead--if at one's will, the Necronomicon. The words that are read match the images in the painting--a painting done by the evil clergyman who had this individual locked up at 5 east.
   As on is locked up at 5 east, he has penned this letter to me about the painting. I had a difficult time trying to believe the account of the painting--at first I thought it was bullshit, but as I read the letter closely--I realized that he was speaking of a true horror.

4/13/94
410 Gunderson Drive
Carol Stream, Illinois

Anthony,
As I am writing this letter, I am currently locked in 5 east of Mason City, not knowing when this nightmare will cease. The things that I am speaking of, I know you as the only one that will believe me as one writes of this horror--the thoughts of which one pens is of the painting done by the Shades of Hades of the Hungry Ghosts.
I know that you wrote of a similar nightmare--a nightmare which you spoke of which as a nervous breakdown, leaving you locked up for a year in the mental hospital in Elgin, Illinois. I remember this because of a poem that you read in Elmhurst, Illinois at the Chocolate Moon near the college.

"the words that are locked with a key
from the Shades of Hades, of the flame,,
within the darkened eyes from the keepers,,
leaving the damned behind, all that shouldn't be"

This poem spoke of the very thing that I pen and by my faith--I am trying not to fuckin' break in here because of the nightmare caused by the mother fucker painting, a painting that speaks of the writings of the Hungry Ghosts.

Sincerely,
James Allen Block
Mason City, Iowa

As I read that letter, my memory of the painting is gone--but as I write this, I am alone--sitting in a small space. This small place was the size of a closet, dark and surrounded by rubber padded walls. The story that one tells of the Hungry Ghosts left one here--somewhere that is a nightmare, a horror within the painting.