Doughboy And Other Strange Tales [ebook/paper] - Don Broyles

[Dr. Drib]

Doughboy And Other Strange Tales
by
Don Broyles

For lovers of short fiction with a focus on these categories: unusual, weird, horror, strange, surreal, and irreal.

The link is below this sentence.

[Dr. Drib]

You thought you could escape lazy promotions. You know, the kind where the author repeats the same thing over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over again. And there's no change whatsoever. These promotions are everywhere - like overipe underwear - but good manners keep me from mentioning names.

Well, listen up, buddy and buddette, there is NO escaping lazy promotions.

And THIS is a lazy promotion!

Doughboy and Other Strange Tales

The link is below.

[Dr. Drib]

Yes, the Doughboy wants you to learn the special techniques of baking, then you can join him in the oven! Doesn't that sound like fun?

Doughboy and Other Strange Tales

The link is in the signature, located right below a strange-looking symbol that we authors call a period. Sorry for the technical language: .

[Dr. Drib]

We're not talking WW1.

No, sirree, Bob.

We're talking about a creature birthed in your cereal box - Cornflakes, anyone? - and becomes cookie fodder for discerning tastes.

I have the link right here:

https://www.amazon.com/-/es/Doughboy.../dp/198082276X

[Dr. Drib]

How about a promotional post for one actual Ebook - as indicated in the Self-promotion Guidelines. Sounds startling, doesn't it? The audacious nature of such a claim may be alarming. Nay, even nefarious in its implications! Well, here you go, then, one short-short from my collection of weird horror short-shorts, Doughboy and Other Strange Tales. This one I wrote in memory of my Father when he died in 2014. It's titled, very simply, The Old Man:

The Old Man

At night the boy liked to lie in bed and watch the stars as they twinkled on and off. He imagined reliving the moments he'd had with his now dead father that had taken place in the hallowed sanctity of the boy's darkened room. The two took turns watching the stars through a telescope mounted in front of the bedroom window, the two looking and dreaming. There was not much conversation, for talk was unnecessary. The Father and the boy shared a common interest in astronomy and that was enough to generate a miracle of understanding. The boy's bedroom door was partially open and a diagonal window of light lay across the carpet. The aroma of a chocolate cake baking in the oven downstairs travelled throughout the house as they both breathed in deeply the smells of cooking, both enjoying the warmth of shared companionship. The Father put his arm around the boy and the boy nestled in close, feeling his father's warmth. Feeling loved. In the grass below, shadows danced from a light wind and the leaves seemed to float upward in the air as if defying gravity.

Now he was an old man and his door remained closed, although the stars still twinkled at night. The leaves continued to dance in the wind, but their lightness seemed burdened with heaviness, as if the air could no longer contain such weight. It was difficult for the old man to rise from bed and his lank form was cadaverous with age, but he managed yet to place his body into the chair, to look again at the stars and to dream. He focused upon the Orion Nebula, but his eyes were unable to see with any degree of clarity. Nevertheless, it comforted him to look upon the stars in all their mysterious glory and to imagine what it might be like to travel into their unknown spaces. He coughed often as he looked through the telescope, as the lens pointed toward the distant stars.

Through his closed door, he thought he could hear the soft sound of conversation floating up from the first floor. Although muted by distance, the sounds were comforting to the old man. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

The bedroom door opened and light spilled in and settled upon the carpet. The shadow of the man filling the open space was immense, and would always be immense to the old man's cherished memory. The man walked in and pulled up a chair and sat down and brought his face close to the old man's face, which was now the face of the young boy from long ago, the face of an eager child ready to discover the world and all the secrets beyond the world, even unto the stars.

The Father and the boy leaned against one another, each feeling the warmth of the other. The boy smelled the cleanliness coming off his father, this good clean smell that he had missed for so many years through much of his childhood and later in his adult life. The boy closed his eyes and breathed deep and could not imagine anything more wonderful as he held with one hand the hand of his father, his smaller hand lost in the immensity of this larger hand.

And the boy and the Father walked out into the night with the stars above.



[For my Father]


The link is right below this sentence.