Within each man and woman, buried in the wasteland of the psyche,
is a secret Garden of Evil. I know. I’ve wandered into this dark
garden again and again.

Wild black flowers flourish and I see Death, a Shadow dancing in the
dreamscape, a ghost that transforms itself into any image, now
disguised as a beautiful ballerina dancing around me,

tempting me to touch its gentle fierce hands, kiss its gaudily painted
red lips and enter the Void.

I see Trauma, a severed heart whirling and swirling in the wind.
Suddenly, the wind becomes a Shakespearian Tempest and in a
Kafkaesque metamorphosis, my secret garden is transformed into

a vast, bleak traumascape, evoking chilling memories of Auschwitz.
I cry uncontrollably, howling in the unholy night.
I remember the Holocaust.

I see Despair, dead peacocks in 12 wooden coffins, broken, grotesque
peacock feathers bent over frozen wood. The 12 coffins form a circle,
surrounding the Black Dahlia, a female corpse of macabre beauty with

long flowing black hair, that lies in a gold coffin above a catafalque.
In the Garden of Evil, her real identity is unknown. Perhaps, she is
the notorious victim, brutally murdered and mutilated by a 20th century
killer. Or is she my dead soul?

Slowly, I approach the fantastic corpse, exquisitely sculptured, and
monstrously enchanting. I must see her. The Black Dahlia beckons me.
Gazing into the vacant eyes of Darkness, I vanish.