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Category Archives: dark fiction

I’ve posted many stories, poems, pictures, and music to Visions of the Dark. There is one set of stories that form an overall story arc. These stories were inspired mostly by Robert W. Chambers’ The King in Yellow. While Poe and Lovecraft tend to dominate the upper tier of the pantheon of Weird Fiction, to me, it is The King in Yellow (at least the first four stories of the volume) that creates a truly weird mood that is so unsettling. After all, Poe and Lovecraft published their stories mostly as stand-alone stories, never grouping any tales into an arc that was presented all together.

It was largely because of The King in Yellow that I decided to create the stories that I call The Other Side of Despair; all unified by insanity because it is on the other side of despair where madness lies. There are other influences, too. The story Alone was directly inspired by The Terror by Guy de Maupassant. The story The Things the Shadows Say was directly influenced by The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. There are nods to others throughout as well.

Since these stories were posted out of order with various other items posted between, I thought I would document the true order for anyone who would like to read them the way they were intended.

THE OTHER SIDE OF DESPAIR

Book 1 – The Language of the Mad includes stories:  Shockley House, Alone, The Land of Nod, The Murklor, and The Children of the Wasteland

Book 2 – Suite Insanity includes stories:  Prolegomenon to a Tragedy, Lunatic Overture, The Things the Shadows Say, Kissed by Madness, and The Prophet of Monkey Park

I am super excited about one of my stories from The Other Side of Despair being featured on the latest podcast episode of Random Transmissions. This podcast is super cool and you should go and check out all the episodes!

Random Transmissions

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My story “Shockley House” was published in this year’s Halloween anthology The Yellow Booke.

Hi! If you’ve read any of my blog and my weird writings, please take the time to post a comment about your thoughts and impressions. I’d love to hear what you think!

Also, here is an interview that I just did that delves a little deeper into my artistic vision.

Interview with David Garrett

For those writers and bloggers who have steadfastly followed the last two stories I’ve posted, I would like to say thank you for reading them. After I published my collection of short stories in 2010 I decided to take some time away from writing and figure out a new direction. Finally, I decided to write a novella that was a Lovecraftian, Cthulhu Mythos story – The Scourge of Wetumpka. That took some time to write but turned out quite well. Coming off of that I began writing Psychological Horror short stories. When I use the term Psychological, I am using it in the true sense of the term as having to do with Psychology. I have a Master’s in Psychology and I really enjoy Psychological thrillers with horror or dark fantasy overtones. The first couple of stories were “Alone” and “Shockley House”. I was very pleased with “Shockley House” but wound up re-writing “Alone” in order to make it deliver the right effect. After those two stories, I began to get interested in the use of Symbolism and the techniques used in Impressionism. The last two stories, “The Land of Nod” and “The Murklor”, explore using those techniques in writing weird tales. What makes them really work on a blog is that each day (or every couple of days) a new glimpse or vignette is added to the overall impression of the piece. In “The Land of Nod” I tried to do that by adding more bits of symbolism to the canvass of the story. In “The Murklor”, I tried to do that by adding new vantage points – usually in the form of different writing techniques. Overall, I’m really liking this new direction of Impressionistic Weird Fiction. It’s fun and offers so much freedom.

BTW, I can’t take credit for inventing it. Here’s a really good interview about what I’m trying to achieve in my writing:

The Insomniac Propagandist

One final note – the ciphers in the story “The Murklor” are very much real. They aren’t just thrown together to make the story weirder than it already is. Each one was methodically designed and does have a real solution.

Here is a good article about what this blog is all about!

Storytelling

 

Time and Death

Eyes that grope the haunted cowl

And strokes the strings of a thin lined scowl

Unruly jest made with gleeful mock

And howls the strain of a ticking clock

You slinking wraith that moans and sighs

And whispers laughs through hated cries

The clunking clank of weighted toils

The clotted filth of graveyard soils

Wincing faces of Time and Death

Marked in rasps and ticking breath

Till the final knell rings loud and clear

And the death rattle echoes with every tear

Oh sweet life that has burned so bright

And flickered long with ghostly light

What sad charm we recall to sight

The melancholy affair that conjures night

Soliloquy of the Torturer

How shall I burden thee thou vacant shell?

Whose forlorn spirit can no longer in thee dwell

Abused, contused, such a shredded form

That shirks thy joy beyond the blighted norm

Confused, misused, rebuking clotted clay

Can no longer cower like the dogged prey

O’ how they used to dance upon thy skin

Tools of torture that cajoled blood within

A sanguine medley of raucous outpouring

Thy melodies took to air and then went soaring

That delightful voice so full of passion

That stirred emotions in a poignant fashion

Thy pleading crescendo that wrenched my heart

Hath sang its encore and fled the part

With nary a credit to the conductors skill

Without whose flair to thy struggling will

Would not have brought such fiery drive

To a tedious creature just barely alive

With distressing sorrow I bid adieux

For another apt instrument awaits my cue

Danse Macabre

Shades are shaping

And shapes are shifting

Through faint glowing mist

Ghosts are drifting

Their floating forms

Fills the air

Moaning laments

Of woe and despair

This Danse Macabre

That wends it way

To the Potter’s Field

Where Death holds sway

Forked tongue wizards

Spewing spells

They draw their venom

From necromantic wells

Lurid faced witches

Cavorting nude

Their laughter foul

And their dances lewd

Decaying features

Mottled skins

Rotted flesh

And skeletal grins

Ghastly ghouls

And gory beasts

Great horned monsters

Who’ve come to feast

The graveyard pageant

The writhing throng

Suddenly ceases

At the rumbling gong

The dead have risen

At their master’s calling

But to their knees

They now are falling

Amongst the dankest dark

A tolling fills the gloom

Every creature halts to hark

The approaching Lord of Doom

Clanging clong of iron bell

Precedes his stately tread

Everything that hears the knell

Bows to the King of the Dead

The Haunters of Autumn

 Oh how they cower in dark little places

Fear etches haunted looks on their faces

They scamper and scurry to avoid the light

Only come out to play under cover of night

Their eyes glow like candles flickering in wind

And the rustling of leaves is the sound of their skin

You cannot catch them for they’ve already fled

They cannot be killed for they’re already dead

You’ll hear them whisper from shadowy wood

As the Haunters of Autumn send chills through the blood

 

The airs of October carry their voices

Half-heard gigglings and other strange noises

A whisper behind you that drifts through the air

Tells you their presence is about you somewhere

What are these creatures that haunt the gloom

Mocking and stalking with portents of doom?

The woods are alive with their tittering taunts

You walk alone on one of your nightly jaunts

Hearing your shrieks over the darkening plane

As the Haunters of Autumn leave you cold and insane