Intro:In the year of 1999, I decided to broaden my dark horizons, and play around with some of my journal entries. Stephen Jarjoura gave me the idea when he first did his online diary, well long before I decided to write dark literature, I kept a journal -- to remember ideas that I had for fiction -- some them I had shared as letters to the friends I would be in chat with. This entry and the one titled Hall of Mirrors are taken from actual nightmares that I'd had.
January 25, 1999:
As I'd write this journal entry, It was a year to the date of January 20, 1998, when I'd made the visit to the place called Lower Wacker Drive in Chicago. The thoughts one concieve about the cavern of rusted pipes and concrete are the tappings of a gothic horror tale, but not one written as a novel by Anne Rice or a short story by H.P. Lovecraft -- and the nightmarish terrors I would see at the corner of my weary eyes are of a morbid shadow, a shapeless figure in the midst of a Chicago winter. Such thoughts I begin to describe are an abomination in the eyes of a God fearing individual who'd grown up in a rural town -- such as a place called Hampton or Mason City, Iowa. As I would describe this creeping horror, one would think that I have gone mad because of the brooding nightmares that would haunt me as I'd fallen into a deep sleep. When I began to dream, I'd be alone in the dark place -- a place of where I'd seen a cannibal corpse of an unknown rodent which was left half eaten. At the corner of my tired eyes in the dream, I would see a monstrisity -- an irregularity that appears in a shape of blackbird; a raven.
A raven, as described by Edgar Allen Poe is a morbid shadow that leaves a scar as an addiction to the demon alcohol, the shapeless form which lurks around inside of the cavern of rusted pipes and cold concrete. The thing which I speak of would have one saying that I am one in league with the Devil in a town -- a town known as Hampton, Iowa. How may I ask? To draw the detailed picture, I was walking around a county fair when I had spoken to a local -- a preacher's son. I was clad in black clothing and silver necklaces when I had crossed the preacher's sons path, he was tall -- about 6 feet and 3 inches with a build of a viking. It was him that said I should not dress the way I was because I would be hunted down as a witch, or one whom had a morbid intrest in the fear of the unknown (within one's darkest fears -- the thoughts that should not be are as a sin, are a way of demonic openings.) As he was preaching, in my mind was the nightmare of the place I had visited -- the place called Lower Wacker Drive during a Chicago winter. In the dream, I had seen the preacher's son walking around the dismal caverns of the place called Lower Wacker Drive.
In the dream, the preacher's son said that a Christian should be writing of their nightmares because one would be driven insane -- to the point of a nervous breakdown. He was toting a King James bible -- quoted a verse, "For none of liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord., whether live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. For this both Christ died and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord of the dead and living." With him -- I'd seen a young woman walking along topside of Lower Wacker Drive, she looked like someone that I went to high school with back in Glenbard East, but as I remembered her being a conservative and one who'd said that I've gone a bit mad because I saw things through a darker set of eyes. If I'd spoken of the shadow -- a raven, she would say that I'd gone demonic and the way one thinks is quite unsound in the mind. In league with the nature of madness, the thoughts concieved are unhealthy -- as a ghost in the darkest nights in the winter cold. In her mind, the gothic images that I had seen through my tired eyes are one that should not been seen in the eyes of a Christian, but at the corner of the right eye -- one could see the shadow of darkness, a raven, in the eyes of the bodies asleep in the caverns of rusted pipes and concrete. They were covered with loading blankets and comforters that were thrown away by the hotels which is topside on Upper Wacker Drive. The glimpse was quite unspeakable for one to describe; it looked as I was in a pyramid, but it was much colder -- cold as the flesh of a vampire and dark as the inside of closed casket -- entombed while one is still awake in the coffin, alone inside the dark place. The thoughts inside are of the visitation of what I'd seen in the nightmares of an urban landscape. If I'd spoken of the narrative to Tina Jacobson of the nightmares, she would of said that my soul is of a darkened man -- black as the night of the waning moon, and suggest I would attend a church revival because my reading patterns are unhealthy for one as I to be concieving. What she would tell me is that I am in league with madness, and vast darkness -- in the eyes of a rural Christian, the thoughts of an urban writer are equal to the act of witchcraft or an abomination.Looking into the eyes of madness, one cannot begin to describe the visitation inside the nightmarish visions of an urban writer walking around alone in the dark caverns of rusted pipes and concrete in the middle of a winter -- a Chicago winter in the midst of the shadows that I'd seen at the corner of one's eyes. That one is already fallen asleep inside of the illness invoked dreams -- inside of a room, where no one could hear my voice. A room where the nurse had wrapped one up in a heavy blanket after one's blood is chilled as the ice on Lower Wacker Drive -- and as one sat there in the darkness, I'd remembered what the nurse had told me about one's dreams, and as I am told this -- the morbid visions stand alone inside of one's mind of the dark cavern, as one is weak from the loss of blood after a donation. As one would rest -- I'd begin to dream that I would see a monsterous blackbird; a raven perched inside of the nurse's office at the College of DuPage County. As I would walk of one's mind because of a strong Bible fearing rural town -- one's thoughts called in synce with the Devil because they thought one had gone mad. They thought on the same wave length as Tina Jacobson, "In league with the nature of madness, the thoughts concieved are unhealthy -- as a ghost in the darkest nights in the winter cold."
It is that I -- I am no one in the eyes of the Bible Belt, but one who should be locked up because what I'd kept in my mind are the darkest fears in the eyes that are watching one inside of the shadows. Lurking as an apparition in the cavern -- the cavern which is concieved of cold concrete and rusted pipes; the shapeless shadow which is seen in the eyes of a writer whom had visited the place called Lower Wacker Drive in the dead of a Chicago winter. As one would say that I have gone mad, because I sit down and tell this narratve, in the eyes of a rural town such as Hampton or Mason City -- I am practicing Black Magick in their eyes, but yet what I know is of one's darkest fears, the apparition who made the visitation at the place -- at the place which is called Lower Wacker Drive in Chicago, Illinois. Back to main page~Writings From The Grave~next section~