Too many words. That was the problem with William, the whole village agreed. And when you get a whole village to agree about a single thing, well, you know they probably have a point.
"Too many words" cried out the baker, smelling of fresh bread and day old muffins. "Every time he comes to my shop it takes him an hour to get him to tell me what he wants." His belly stretched like the dough he kneed every morning, crumbs scattering across the town hall floor as he spoke.
And the baker did have a point. This is just one example of how William would usually saunter into the bakery;
"Why, what a beautiful, sunny, break of dawn we have here don't you agree my good man? Such a radiant day, in which we find the sun out, brandishing its rays of lights like a knight brandishes his sword. This is just the type of that day that would bring a fellow like myself to your shop, your place of business, the profession that heh, puts the proverbial 'bread' on your table if you will."
That is, unless it rained. If it rained, William's greeting might have gone something like this;
"Oh such raging tempest is outside your door baker my good man. Oh how envious am I of you, to be able to be near the raging fire that is your furnace and never feel the prickling kisses from mother nature. Yes, this is the type of day that demands one to come for some baked goods, even if it means facing down winds that I could not have fathom in my wildest of dreams. "
The day it snowed, the poor baker didn't even bother opening up his shop.
"I warned you, aye I did," the schoolteacher said, wagging a wrinkled finger to all her past students. Considering that she not only had to put up with hearing William, but also grade his papers, one could accuse her of being prejudice to the whole matter. Then again, perhaps reading papers with titles such as;
The Pontification of the Ramifications of Reading and Analyzing See Rex Run, Run Rex Run
By
William Bartholomew James
Afforded her a bit of prejudice.
"I had to switch bedrooms," the prettiest girl in the village pouted. Prettily of course. At one point, she'd been the proud owner of the bedroom with the best view of the village. Every morning she could wake up and watch the sun rise from the mountaintops. Until William got it in his head to try to woo her.
"They say that eyes are the windows of the soul. Well, I am here to rectify such saying with a fresher , and far more truthful statement. I decree that windows are in fact the windows of the soul. For as I stare up at your window I can't help but see my own soul, and the happiness that grows there, like a seed burrowed in the loving soil every time I happen to catch sigh of your beautiful visage. Oh my darling, my muse, my reason for existing, will you not allow the moon to strike your perfectly oval face and awash it with its caress?"
Now her bedroom was on the first floor, with a beautiful view of the outhouse. The smell wasn't pleasant, but at least she didn't have to listen to William.
From the village drunk to the mayor himself(who happened to be brothers by the by), everyone had a story to share about William. If the mayor, his long distinguished mustache tired of bristling with every tale, hadn't bang his gavel, the village meeting would have gone on for the entire night. But bang his gavel he did, spreading silence through the hall.
"I have heard enough," he exclaimed, banging his gavel a few more times for good measure. Plus, well, he liked the powerful sound it made as it hit the podium.. "William has made the entire village suffer for far too long. How long are we going to live in fear of him? Something must be done."
Indeed, something needed to be done, the entire village was in agreement on that. But exactly what to do is what now drove the meeting.
"I say we just throw him into the furnace," the baker suggested.
"We eat the bread cooked on that furnace," the schoolteacher reasoned. "Just bring him back to my class. Ruler and I will beat the words back into him."
"That's too mean" the prettiest girl in the village whispered, remembering how ugly her hands how looked when she'd been a student. "We should just cut off his tongue."
"I think we should marry William". Then he'll be too busy being a husband to speak." All the men nodded their head in agreement, and all the wives elbowed their husband a second later.
"I think we should get thief to steal his words." Conversation suddenly came to a stop as people chewed on the latest suggestion, deciding it tasted just right. It really was quite simple when one stopped and thought about it. The only thing left was finding thief.
"Don't look at me," shrugged the constable, angling for one of the pastries brought by the baker. "He escaped my cell a week ago. Haven't seen him since."
With a sigh, the Mayor looked around the room before speaking. "I hereby pardon thief of any of the numerous, and I'm sure quite true charges that might have been levied at him."
"Thank you." The words floated down from the rafters, causing everyone to crane their necks up to catch a sight of thief. Most just saw shadows.
Trying to hide his surprise, the mayor pounded on the gavel. "Ahem, well, that's on the condition that you can solve our little problem."
Out of the shadows came a smile. "Sure."
Last Friday in our creative writing class we were tasked with writing a faery tale, or at least the beginning to one. The funny thing is that the day prior for whatever reason I been mulling over the idea of writing a noir faery tale. My idea was just basically transposing something like Snow White into the noir setting. That still sounds like something that would be fun to write. I decided to try to stretch out from my normal writing habits and came out with this. I kinda surprised myself, as originally the main character was going be William himself, but I really don't think I'm up to writing in his words for a lot of time, nor are people up for reading that. The idea of the thief just popped up of nowhere, and I like it. While brainstorming I suddenly remember an old character I created for roleplaying. His name was Coin, or as I liked to introduce him, Coin the self proclaimed master thief. Basically, he was Deadpool mixed with Dungeons and Dragons. I briefly thought of putting him in this story, but it just wouldn't work, seeing as he's as much as a chatterbox as William is. Instead I went with just the name thief, which follows the naming motiff of the rest of the story.
I always worry that people won't find my "humorous" stories as funny as I do. This one I'm curious about, because there's a lot of spots that might just fall flat in their face.
Don't know if I'll ever continue this, as I'm not in love love with this story, and don't know exactly how I would continue it.
No comments:
Post a Comment