Writing Exercises from Serving up a Story

Serving up a Sentence

Oliver— was his name. Start with this sentence and the rest is up to you.

Oliver— was his name.

That was what the driver's license said anyway "Oliver Stephen Thompson? Well what do you know? My name is Stephen too, except I go by Steve because I just think it sounds more manly. Anyway I want thank you Oliver. I really needed that. I know that I shouldn't have, but when you have an itch you just have to scratch it." Steve said as he shoved the card into his shirt pocket as a memento.

"First of all I want make it clear that it was nothing personal. You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time." He said to a bloody and unresponsive Oliver.

"Now in my defense I had been good for a long time." Steve was sitting on his heels next to the body. He leaned over and pulled a large hunting knife out of Oliver's chest then proceeded to wipe the blood off on the victims shirt.

"In fact I believe I was going on almost year without killing anyone." He paused for a moment and scratched underneath his chin with the back of the knife as he tried to remember. "Yep, the fifteenth of this month would've been exactly one year. Well shit, there goes my streak. Don't worry though I'm not blaming you. I'm the one with the problem and I promise I'm going to go back to my meetings. Scout's honor." Steve then stood to his feet and held up three fingers of the Boy Scouts sign.