Shades of Hades
essay by Nickolaus A. Pacione
inspired by Steve Jarjoura and Pat Grady
A special thank you to Jennifer Avery for encouraging me.

The thoughts that are concieved are already goddamned. The images inside of one's nightmares had driven one into a dark paranoia; the things that one would begin to describe in the open are goddamned by the Christians -- these nightmares that had driven me mad, but one had denighed the thought of going mad because of the lie behind their beliefs. The nightmares that had driven one into writing this narrative, the shunned thoughts of seeing an angel ingest a bottle of pills just to commit self-slaughter -- that would not be spoken of in the eyes of a Bible Belt. Addiction is something that is kept well a secret, but the Shades of Hades will see these things -- surely they are there, watching in form of a crow atop of church steeple. It is in the eyes of the Shades of Hades where one of the Christian God’s angels would sit in a dark corner holding a razor blade to their wrists. This is a question that a human will ask, “Do angels in heaven get depressed like a fucking human -- could they fix on herion and get shitfaced on whiskey and beer? I am sure that God provides them with the syringe so they can fix. I am sure that they would like to get high on occasion by smoking cannabis. There they are smoking up in Heaven while their fucking servants are burning their money on the goddamned church.” In the mind of a tormented man, one can vividly describe the Shades of Hades as beings clad in solid gray. They would sit there and laugh their asses off at how the slaves give their money away, praying away the thoughts of Dante’s Inferno -- where Satan can hear their cries. The angels are slowly dying while no one hears them -- the saints have blood on their hands, and pretend that they did not commit murder.

The Shades of Hades had spent many years alone, but they exist inside of the Christian’s nightmares. They sit there; watching as one would slowly go mad -- they try too hard to think of the fucking pure or the lovely because they would try to hide the fact that they live in the projects. In the projects a murder would happen every fucking day about five blocks from the subway. The Shades of Hades would slowly watch as the John Doe would recieve about forty four slugs in their skull, knowing that they are about to join them soon -- the blood that flows from where each of the bullets had impaled them. They recieved so many bullets that their own girlfriend wouldn’t be able to idenify the corpse. As the Christians would fall asleep, they would dream about seeing their angels in heaven, but they will not realize that the angels are fixing on herion that God above had provided -- though that they thought that their God is loving, but the truth is He doesn’t give a flying fuck on what happens to them. They would imagine that they would be ingesting a bottle of pills or be taking a razor blade to their wrists -- feeding the ground the blood that would flow from their sliced wrists.

They cannot see that the Shades of Hades are watching them from the land of the dead. They appear in the dreams of the ones that are already asleep -- the ones that are asleep with their coffins and are covered with a blanket of dirt. They don’t see that there is a heaven or a hell, when they are dead they are gone -- as the Christians don’t realize where the dead do see them; see them mourning as they don’t see the Shades of Hades. The Shades of Hades are looking at them from inside of the chapel, where the pastor had already tried to slice his wrists because he had seen them -- them as in the Shades of Hades. In a city like Chicago, one would see the Shades of Hades walk around in the darkness that would slowly fall on the Robert Taylor Homes -- where they would see the living have dreams about them being inside of a coffin, they body is long dead only that they can see the people that mourn over them as they are in the eternal coma. The horror comes when they watch themselves become buried in blankets of dirt. The Christians would then preach and try to covert the surviving; then when they would pray to the empty skies, they hear nothing. They use religion to hide their illness, hiding from the eyes that are watching them from below.

They close their eyes, but they will never be able to open them again because acid had burned them shut -- they hide their eyes from the Shades of Hades and then ignoring their own darkening that would haunt them inside of their nightmares. From when they sleep would be their descent into the netherworld, where they would see the Shades of Hades looking back at them. They would laugh as they would believe in their telltale lie -- as the Shades of Hades would walk around beneath the streets looking at the people that would live under Lower Wacker Drive as they would intake 24 cc’s of herion and entertain the rat poputalion. What they don’t see is that they are watching them, the Shades of Hades would watch them in their dreams.

From the Christians will refuse to see are their thoughts, that would be as they sit in a darkened chapel -- then taking a razor to their wrists. They cannot see the blood flowing from them; falling asleep in pools of crimson liquid. As they would fall asleep, they awaken in a netherworld -- the gardens of the Styx River. The ferryman is looking back at them while they have dimes over their eyes as payment for them to cross. The Shades of Hades are there -- looking among the living as well as the dead, they would see the pastor is in hell though the many years that he had preached of going to Heaven where the angels would fix on syringes full of herion. Even in heaven, the Shades of Hades would watch them as they are born to die -- the nightmares that one will see and the Shades of Hades would stand there watching them back.