Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
This is, of course, my pre-writing writing. I find it immensely helpful to get some words in the Post prior to writing a Six Sentence Story. There is something about words already being ‘on the page’, or perhaps, it would be better to say, ‘it’s good, when deadline time arrives (tomorrow morning), not to have to stare at a plain, white, empty page. So, I come here the evening or perhaps the afternoon of the day before zoe calls for Six Sentence Stories, which she does every Thursday. Each week there is a new prompt word around which we are asked to write a story of six and only six sentences.
It’s fun. You should try it. Now. This week. As in …’today’.
This week’s prompt: ‘Bread’
Claire Griswold brushed at the wave of blond hair projecting beyond the hood of her coat, now a crystalized shield from the blowing snow, and ran across the street. The young woman realized, only as she leapt over the slush-clogged gutter, that, hidden under the white innocence of the freshly fallen snow, the concrete sidewalk was glazed with ice. Deciding that, if her fate was to meet Death on the streets of a small New England town with the improbable name of South Egremont, upright was preferable to supine, smiled defiantly as the plate-glass front of the bakery rushed towards her.
Deprived of any other constructive course of action, Claire concentrated on reading the lettering on the rapidly approaching glass storefront which, like the ice field of an arctic bay with it’s cold-dark blue interrupted by patches of cold-white ice from broken glaciers, had patches of snow obscuring the gilt-painted lettering, ‘..sh bread and past..’ the only intelligible message. Out of nowhere, an encircling grip established itself around her waist, as her feet and her head, still in the grips of Newton and therefore determined to continue on to the building, bent slightly over and under the arm that held her mostly in place.
Claire felt, as much heard, in a woolen semaphore, a strong voice penetrating her ice-crowned hood, pressing up against still-warm ears, ‘gotcha!‘
About clarkscottroger
I was delighted to find you continuing your serial story! I wanted to believe that someone was coming to her rescue to save her from crashing thru the window, but I had bad feeling she couldn’t be that lucky. The ending gave me chills. Keep ’em coming, I’m ready for the next page!
so many stories, the Six Sentence Story is such a fun bloghop
Great way to describe that disaster-is-imminent-so-time-seems-to-slow feeling!
we’ve all had the experience and still it’s so elusive, does time slow down or does our brain speed up?
A book in the making…
ayiiee… in the throes of completion with Almira… not ready yet!
Clearly I’ve missed Six Sentence day often enough that I had no idea you have an ongoing story. Ugh. Must catch up… I’m intrigued by the half-obscured message in particular – reminds me of the faded sign in Gatsby – the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleberg.
how cool is the internet… just googled ‘the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleberg’ and well, damn! (and thanks for the compliment by association!)
Isn’t that cool?
You know what this means right? You’re going to have to write a biography for Claire Griswold!
I know enough about her from reading Almira that I can easily picture her running across that street and can see her facial expressions to boot ☺
Nicely done. Now I’m going out into my own blustery, very cold but sunny day.
No telling who old she was or is…at least old enough to be hired (we presume) as a nurse in 1939. But then, there is that uncanny resemblance to a one Simone Baumeister
perfect story for a snow day.
thank you
Rescued just in time. I need to catch up, too. Plucked Ms. Griswold right out of the early twentieth century in the Midwest and placed her in a New England town on a wintry day. I like it. Can I guess she’s a time traveler the way she slinks around the halls of the hospital?
good point, though I like to think of how she moves as non-temporal locomotion You, of course, recognize the name. I was saying it to someone else, I decided to have our Ms Griswold in the story if for no other reason than it’s easier to write about people we know than people we don’t know.
That was close. Well done!
thank you M
At my age the idea of rushing anywhere immediately brings images of me crashing to the sidewalk…again. The only reason to rush to a bakery is to get there before the Danish pastries are sold out.
I recognized the name….and well regarding the impending crash …your talking to a gal who fell through a plate glass window, so the rescue let me exhale…thanks….and in n. Egremont to boot!!!!
yeah, I thought you’d get a kick out of the mention (of the town, not the plate glass*)
* I took a google-walk through N Egermont…. not really big enough to have a Main St that should include a bakery, but what are ya gonna do?
Oh, my goodness, it felt like forever before she was rescued from falling. I felt my own body starting to fall on that ice and snow mixture, since we have had our share of such stuff this winter. I’m glad she was saved from a horrible fall.
There is that remarkable experience of the telescoping of time that we’ve all had and (hopefully) come through un-scathed.
GAH I so need to catch up. Remarkable!
I was just thinking that… (that I need to find a writing context in which ‘GAH’ is the perfect word) (wait for it….)
GAH!*
* I added a ‘!” Y Chromosome, of course