Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
Way late tonight! It’s 6:43 and I’m only just now typing my Six Sentence Story warm-up. Bear with me, this weeks’ prompt word is ‘Turn’. Zoe, in her wisdom is charging us to write a certain story employing the word. The certain thing about the Six Sentence Story is that story must be six sentences in length and it cannot be seven or eighty-three sentences long. This story that you know you want to write? It must not be five sentences or one sentence long.
Otherwise the bloghop name, ‘Six Sentence Story‘ wouldn’t make sense and sense we must make.
Lets consider ‘Turn’
The old couple walked out onto the pier that connected the earth to the sea in the small fishing port, one of several broad wooden fingers that extended from the dirt-puddled parking lot, itself an ocean of refuse and disappointed dreams, mostly half-crushed coffee cups, pieces of plastic twine and the occasional single rubberized glove, its finger tips worn through, the Final Decree for a once perfect couple.
She stepped carefully, one eye towards the many dangers that lay on their path and one (secret) eye on her companion, who, in turn, expressed the gender imperative of matching caution with daring, sensibility with recklessness; age-edited memories of a younger day beckoned to him. All around them was an aromatic museum of human endeavor as old as farming, necessity-born ingenuity displayed in the coils of wire cables and the greasy complexity of the machinery that filled the open decks of the boats.
Amidst and among the metal masts and tin-capped pilings, the birds flew, disturbed by the approach of the couple who were clearly not native to either of the worlds that the gulls inhabited.
Finding a crumbly arc of a white-sugared donut, the old man smiled and threw it up as high as he could, (which was higher than she thought and not as high as he hoped), the birds wheeled in unison, diving towards the food.
“Did you see the tern turn in turn,” the man laughed, forgetting how old he was; his wife smiled, knowing how old they were.
About clarkscottroger
I don’t know how you do it! I have a hard time with limits, Twitter, Six-sentence stories, word count. Lol Great job!
you wouldn’t believe how many times I go back through (various drafts) reading aloud and counting sentences on my fingers.
thanks!
Term turn; very creative.
ty
Age is but a number! A delightful tale.
Click here to read my six!
heading right over!
I think we should take Una down to the fishing docks this weekend.
Does that make me a Roger (LOL)?
good idea
This made me smile for more than one reason. I loved the “tern turn”, and the bravado of the older man still feeling his youth an hoping to impress his lady. This could so easily be a couple I know. :-)
hey thanks, Josie I suspect we all have that wrapped up and put safely away corner of youth
You wrote this with such wonderful descriptives, carefully chosen words that set a scene enabling us to take this walk with them. As one who delights in tossing food up to the gulls, I love that flying crumbly donut and immediate response it received!
thank you (gulls do love donuts)
I love this very much–the ending warmed the cockles of my heart.
this is a good thing
Your word-play made me smile! In many ways, they are only as old as they decide to be.
always
I think that most older people (me for instance) find it very hard to believe how old they really are. I’ll probably go down to the beach now having read this and see how high I can throw some food up to the gulls, terns, whatever.
excellent… ’cause just because the world says we’re a certain thing/person/age, so does not mean we have to live in the manner as they define it.
You hooked me in (pun intended) with your beautiful descriptions – me living in a shore town and all, and then the punchline. As the tern turns.
…yeah, I wish I could have found the words for the smell of a fishing port…very distinctive and a smell that I enjoy in a very fundamental way, sort of like the smell of mimeograph ink
This is one of the best six sentence stories of yours that I have read! The descriptive details and that great last line make me want to keep trying to become a better writer and observer. Thank you.
thanks, Pat… yeah I know what you mean, I read the others and (often) I see something done that I’d been trying to figure out how to convey very helpful to my own efforts to become a better writer