Donald Conrad's Blog

I never really know what genre my nonsense fits into. This one starts out as a Slice of Life tale. But then, as in most of my stories, things go awry…which can be said of normal life as well. Give a listen by clicking below, and then tell me what you would call it.

Is is Slice of Life (gone awry)?

Is it Horror?

Experimental?

Late on a Friday at the end of July in a park somewhere in New England a couple walk their dogs along...

This is an odd Keelian sort of story. John Keel wrote The Mothman Prophecies, which is even weirder than the movie.

“Records indicate Eastus Hutt bought the place—a total of ten point eight acres—last October. Nobody at town hall heard of Swiller Road. I had to look it up at the Registry of Deeds. Turns out it’s an old fire road that leads out to the middle of nowhere.

“Turn here—”

The rutted access road was potholed at the begin...

Another story about places where the borders are thin and things get through, Click on the arrow and let me tell you about it.

It didn’t occur to Zachary Mosko that anything was amiss when he awoke to the static and hiss. He felt around the bed for the remote and found it near Margaret’s pillow. She remained sound asleep. He pressed the power button, which shut down the LCD monitor and the cable box.

In the quiet of the darkened bedroom, after...

It’s been a while since anything’s been posted here. I have plenty of excuses, but I’ll spare you that. Instead let me tell you a story. Click the arrow below, sit back and enjoy!

Download: IllusoryStorage.mp3

I hoisted the rollup door and it banged at the top. My wife, Patricia, was standing next to me. I could feel her sidelong glare as she rubbed her hands together. Me? I was looking at what we bought. Still trying to guess what was under the ancient floral bedspread.

We participate...

This is the first bit of flash fiction from me for 2012. Let me read it to you by clicking on the arrow below.

We were living in the house for six months before the crack started. The builder called it a settling crack—made it seem less important than I was making it out to be. He had one of his guys come over, trowel some mud on it (their term), and paint it over the next day. It looked great when he was done.

A week later, it came back. The jagged crack was wide enough to stick a letter...

Of  three Thanksgiving Day inspired stories, I settled on this one—a gross out story.

The meat of this story starts the moment little Tyler Tedesco found the sweetener in his grandmother's pantry and decided to sweeten everything for Thanksgiving. There was a box of it, all in small bottles. So he secreted a bottle into the squash, another into the turnip, and kept going until he sweetened everything except the cranberry sauce, which was already pretty sweet.

He and his mom had arrived at...

Here's a short Halloween tale, something to stir the imagination. Click the arrow below and I'll read it to you.

A howl in the night began low and guttural. It intensified like one of those hand-crank air-raid sirens out of an old war movie—wavering and climbing. Others joined in with yips and howls and you could hear a hierarchy there. It was infinitely creepier than the film I was watching—Creature from the Black Lagoon.

It sounded close, but not dangerously so. I stepped out my front door...

This is a rare bit of non-fiction from me. It's about Sunny, the dog pictured in the header above. That shot was taken this past Spring when he could still walk. The pictures below can be viewed larger by clicking on them; they'll open in a new window so you won't lose the audio feed.

Let me read this to you by simply clicking the arrow below.

***

Shopping for another dog back in 1997, we came upon a Shih Tzu we named Sunny because that was the effect he had on our family.

Our other dog, Dutch...

First; I'd like to tell my subscribers to visit FlashTold to listen to the audiofeed. The email link only provides for a download. I'm not sure about making the whole shebang clikable in a subscriber email.

Let me read this circular story to you by clicking on the arrow below. I think you'll like it…

Dennison woke with a hitching inhalation of air and peeled himself out of the corner of the door pillar and the seat. He noticed the garish combination of blood red, pale yellow and black in the...

For this story, I've recorded an audio version which will allow me to read it to you. Audiobooks have been part of my literary diet for some time now. Making this recording has given me a new respect for the art. As for this first recording of moi, well, I'll leave it for you to decide if it's any good. I do welcome constructive criticism—in fact, crave your thoughts. Because with each thoughtful comment, I hope to become a better storyteller.

Listen along now, by pressing the arrow below.

He...