Bryan Buffkin
Bio
Bryan Buffkin is a high school English teacher, a football and wrestling coach, and an aspiring author from the beautiful state of South Carolina. His writing focuses on humorous observational musings and inspirational fiction.
Stories (43/0)
Stupid Darren
Stupid Darren. Dude will never find me. It’s dark, cold, and I’m covered in Cheetos dust down here. Geez, brother. You just HAD to take me off while you were playing video games and eating snacks. On the couch. Onto a coffee table that you smack every single time some nine-year-old in Taiwan no-scopes you from clear across the map, you swearing through gritted teeth so you don’t wake up your napping wife and 7-month old in the next room. I can hear you now, frantically looking everywhere, your hand searching through seat cushions covered in your loose hair, sweat, and food stains trying to find me. You better hope you do before she wakes up and…
By Bryan Buffkin6 months ago in Fiction
Run it Back
I hate making New Years’ declarations, mostly because I can’t imagine a worse way of starting the new year than immediately breaking a promise you made to yourself. “30 minutes of cardio every day”, right? Yeah, I caught a charliehorse in the back of my left thigh getting off the toilet this morning, so that elliptical is getting a little dusty today. And now I’m sad, because I made this big to-do about “getting healthier” and “identifying my waistline” and here I am, in the drive-thru at Dairy Queen, paying in cash so my wife doesn’t judge me as she checks the credit card statement yet again.
By Bryan Buffkin6 months ago in Writers
Buff Daddy
“Buffkin!!!” My coach screamed my name as I walked out of the locker room, helmet in-hand, jogging steadily to the practice field. He wasn’t angry; because I was a middle schooler who happened to play with the high school team, it was normal for me to be late coming to practice each day. It wasn’t that I was some superstar middle schooler playing with the big boys. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Up until this point, I had been a disappointment; I was called up to the big leagues only because I was thirteen, 6’4”, and already pushing three spins. But I was soft, both in body and temperament. And it didn’t help that every day was catch-up, trying to stretch, warm-up, and absorb whatever drill or technique the coach was already teaching all at the same time. This day was just as confusing, as all the players were lined up in a giant circle, with Coach standing in the middle.
By Bryan Buffkin7 months ago in Humans
Chicken Parm and Chick Flicks. Runner-Up in Nourished Challenge.
So, my wife of sixteen years and I met in college. She was a cute little brunette Accounting major by the name of Anna. We had started dating in the fall before, but now it was February, and readily approaching was our first Valentine's Day together as a couple. For me, it was not really that big of a deal, but for her? She had just casually informed me that I was her first ever boyfriend, her first actual relationship.
By Bryan Buffkin9 months ago in Feast
Premature Hope
It was 2016 in Saluda, South Carolina. A week before Spring Break. Anna was as big as a house and we were expecting the boys any day now. Despite her impending childbirth, Anna still worked from time to time, and my teaching schedule hadn’t changed at all. This particular day, around late month-seven of the pregnancy, Anna went to her doctor for yet another check-up. As it turns out, twins can fit in a mother’s stomach any number of ways, and our twins decided to lay one on top of the other, Logan on top and Lukie on the bottom. Now that I think about it, much of this still rings true to what the boys are like today; at any given moment, the boys are probably laying on top of each other right this very moment.
By Bryan Buffkin11 months ago in Chapters
Akdown
It was my Junior year of high school, and I belonged to a group of friends that were obsessed with video games and professional wrestling. We weren’t meatheads, per se, but when we got together, we often acted as such. I would go to my friend Jonathan’s house, we would fire up his Sega Saturn, and we would play these terrible professional wrestling video games. They would handle poorly, the graphics wouldn’t impress anybody, and it was very stupid, juvenile, and overall harmless fun. One such week, we used the create-a-wrestler function to create our own personal and horrific abominations. We would program their moves, their finishers, their celebrations, everything; we fashioned them after psychopathic clowns in the vein of the Insane Clown Posse (we were stupid teenagers; I’ll apologize for nothing). We played our characters against Stone Cold Steve Austin, Shawn Michaels, The Rock… and we had a blast.
By Bryan Buffkin11 months ago in Writers
William Goldings "Lord of the Flies"
People are all born evil and selfish, always choosing themselves first. It is only society that makes us good or redeemable. How do we know? William Golding’s masterpiece puts this front and center, showing that good British boys will immediately slice each other’s throats the second the chips are down.
By Bryan Buffkin11 months ago in Critique
Twisted, by Laurie Halse Anderson
It was 2007; I was in graduate school, getting my masters in Secondary ELA Education, on my way to becoming a high school English teacher. I’m starting the first round of my student teaching, and on my first day at this particular school, I was given a rather brief tour of the school. When I went into the uncomfortably tight guidance office, a book on the counselor’s shelf caught my eye. It was a dark, reflective black cover, and on it was a bright red pencil that twirled around itself at the top. The glaring colors against the deep black backdrop grabbed my attention, as did the title etched in stark white going up the side of the pencil. Simple, sharp. Twisted. I picked it up and looked it over, and the counselor began to gush. “Oh, it’s so good.” “You’ll read it in one sitting.” “Just the best young adult novel you could ask for.” All glowing recommendations.
By Bryan Buffkin11 months ago in BookClub
Tales From a Dad With a Whistle
So, the Italians derived a term, the title “prima donna,” in the late 17th century. It was a term used to refer to the premier, most talented opera singer in an opera company. Typically, this was a female soprano, the best of the best. From this title, two centuries later, the term “diva” was born. Diva is an Italian term for a female deity, or a “goddess”, and the implication was that these prima donnas were so talented and so popular that they were goddesses compared to other singers in the opera company. It was a supreme compliment.
By Bryan Buffkin11 months ago in Chapters
New Day Baptist
Tyson could have slept clean through the alarm clock were it not for the beam of sunlight cutting through the tattered remains of his hand-me-down curtains, reminding him that he’d already slapped the black snooze button twice. He groaned and rolled to the edge of the bed; his foot slapped the side of a few cheap, plastic bottles, sending them rolling across the stained carpet. He stood and stretched; the room spun a bit, a mixture of only three hours of sleep combined with what he assumed was the remaining alcohol he had in his system. He caught himself on his dresser and shook the cobwebs off. Unlocking the clasp on the knob, he opened his bedroom door and looked down the apartment hallway, only to see the passed out bodies of the numerous revelers from the party the night before, strewn across living room furniture, the floor, and one lovely party-goer peacefully snoring across the dining room table.
By Bryan Buffkin11 months ago in Fiction
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