I laughed my heart out yesterday. It was glitter, glitter everywhere in my mind. I was writing in a cafe and needed a quick, temporary name for a miserable, middle aged character. I don’t want to know what my fellow coffee drinkers thought of the crazy woman laughing and snickering into her tiny keyboard…
Since everyone I’ve told about this wants me to keep the character’s name as it is, I decided to post an excerpt.
The following excerpt is (c) M.L. Crabb 2014
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Richard Butkiss!
“We’ll get you help,” Kenneth stated, emerging from the shelter with a large knife strapped to his brown belt. His ruck sack was hanging from his left shoulder, and he was slipping his right arm into the remaining strap. “Where is Butkiss? It doesn’t take this long to take a dump.”
“We are in…in…” My cousin started muttering something about his books. I didn’t care if he was some hot-shot New York Times bestselling author; he was being ridiculous. Had he suffered some sort of mental meltdown during the crash?
The woods rattled with a sudden fury of noise. Butkiss came barreling through, nearly tripping over a branch that had fallen the night before. He kicked it with his tiny foot and started cussing. I hated him. I hated his awkward fitting khaki pants. I hated his red face–it was never pale. Never. There was always something he was irate about. I hated his beady eyes and his bowling pin of a body. His head was far too small.
I sighed. Was I being too harsh on the man? Maybe he was just miserable and couldn’t help it.
“WHO LEFT THIS BRANCH HERE?”
“Yes, please wake King Avundil. Please,” my cousin whined. I let my face fall into the palm of my left hand. He had truly lost it. Richard Butkiss’s chest heaved, and he clenched his sweaty fists. For a moment, I thought the man might keel over and have a heart attack.
“My…my…” his tone was stilted and stiff, and his cheeks grew redder. “My canteen had spiders on it.” His dark eyes flickered to my cousin, growing wide, as if asking some sort of unspoken question. “I think I know who did it,” his voice dropped into an eerie bass. His eyes sifted to me. I snorted. We are in the woods. What does he expect!?
Kenneth shot me a sidelong glance and cleared his throat. “Get your things,” he barked. “We are heading out.” That was all it took to shut that red faced monster up. Why my cousin kept that oaf as company, I would never know.
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Tags: cafe, funny, humor, richard, story, writing
