My First Attempt At A Novel, Part II

The sun filtered into the visitors’ room with a discoloured translucence, due to the dwindling budget of the prison and the use of the same tainted bulletproof glass as that in the booths separating loved one from loved one – or in Luke’s case, life-long friend from unfortunate life-long friend.

Mikey sat at the only empty booth, obviously unaware of the teachings from his dozens of previous visits; upon seeing Luke he raised his arms and roared a presumably crass greeting, happily ignorant to the role of the telephones attached to the counters. He began to laugh to himself. The other visitors stopped the precious little time for conversing with their incarcerated loved ones to stare intently at the weasely man sitting alone.
Luke walked past the guard watching over the room and moved to the booth. He glanced around at the other inmates, smirked sheepishly at his neighbour, then sat down and picked up the phone.
“Hey.”
“Herald! How’s things?” Mikey’s life work was simple and constant: find any and every way of referring to Luke as an angel, bird or any other entity that possesses wings, wing-like arms, or a name that rhymes with wings.
“Herald. Angels herald things. Guy’s name. Get it?” Mikey's smiled and raised his eyebrows to show the immense pride he had for his efforts.
“Yeah I get it.” Luke couldn’t help but smile. Up until this point, Mikey was the only constant, dependable thing in his life, as he was so undependable and unstable in every way.
“So. Clipping Day, ay?” Mikey gestured to the roughly pruned feathers sticking out at odd angles. “You look like road kill that has unfortunately and inhumanely been brought back to life.”
“Oh, gee, thanks.” Luke said, rubbing the back of his neck. “One of the guards has become pretty good at that lasso. I think he’s been practicing.”
Mikey held the phone away from his mouth, perhaps thinking that if Luke couldn’t hear him laughing, he would be oblivious.
“They finally got the lasso trick? What a flock of birdbrain dodos!” For some reason Mikey adopted a Cockney English accent.
“Alright. That’s enough.” Luke knew if he didn’t try to stop him, he would just keep going.
“Couldn’t be more cuckoo.”
“Ok, Mikey.”
“They’re so stupid they wouldn’t know a finch from a fairy penguin! I trust you gave them the bird?” Mikey couldn’t hold his lips together for much longer. The corners of his mouth were heading past his ears.
“Ha. Ha.” Luke said sarcastically. “I’m not a fucking bird. And penguins don’t even have wings, cock.”
“HA! COCK!”

Mikey fell backwards out of his chair.
Luke hung up the phone and walked out of the visitors’ room.

Stay Tuned..

E. L. Dornbusch..