Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
This week the prompt word is ‘PLATE’
Not: LATE or FREIGHT or even CRATE! …plate.
zoe’s instructions are quite explicit: a story that employs the word (in some capacity), limited in total length to precisely Six Sentences.
So this week’s Six Sentence Story is, like most of life here in the virtual world, mostly factual but in (some) part fictional. But then, therein lies the charm. The experience (and the inference that leads to an insight into the human psyche) were quite real. The day and time and place has been eaten by that famously hungry, increasingly attractive goddess, Lethe.
Plate
As I walked down Circuit Ave very early one Tuesday morning, in a forgotten year’s October, I noticed movement on the opposite side of the street. The street and it’s sidewalks were deserted; the combined effect of the time of year and the time of day. Only natives, (who claimed with defiance and pride the title of ‘Islander’) would be available, but few had the time or the interest to window-shop the businesses that hadn’t closed down on Labor Day.
I did not stop or slow my pace, rather I turned my head to the left and, once both eyes were looking ‘over there’ instead of ‘up ahead’, I saw a man walking parallel to me. Within that brief instant, a period in which a tick of a clock would be too long but a stutter of a heartbeat far too short an interval, I realized it was my reflection in a plate-glass window of a combination, gift shop/consignment clothing store, with the unlikely name of ‘Give it One More Try’.
After a laugh that was one part embarrassment but mostly appreciation of the world’s endless ability to surprise me, I thought, ‘You didn’t recognize yourself?’ (complete with a slight Yiddish accent); before I could admit I hadn’t, the thought came, ‘Well then, who were you expecting to see?’
About clarkscottroger
I recognize myself less and less each day.
yeah, whats the deal with that?
Such an interesting way to put it. Well told!
thank you, Mimi
Well written, irony lined 6 today. Nice :)
Having lived in a beach town, tourist laden in summer, I can relate to the sense of “desolate” when the tourists have all left (for the next 9 months anyway). There’s this cool inbetween time, during which you begin to adjust, once again, to “off season”.
this is very true
I sometimes tell myself that the person looking back isn’t me! Nice one.
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thanks man
“…in a forgotten year’s October…” More polished wordsmithing.
So often, our own selves are not what we expect. (And I keep catching myself in the mirror and wondering where in hell that old broad came from)
“…where in hell that old broad came from”
cha…ching!
“…the inference that leads to an insight into the human psyche”
so, what happened after the curtain falls is that I was (fortunate) to catch a memory-glimpse of the person I ‘first saw’ in the plate glass window and realized that it was me…when I was about 28 years old. (Now, being a good clark I couldn’t let it go at that…lol) so the short version is, at a certain point in life (imo) we all ‘lock in’ our self image. Nothing obvious (we rarely ever catch ourselfs doing it)… but in that split second on the street I saw my ‘true’ self. Not ‘true’ true, but ‘true’… lol Afterwards I would talk about this to other people (judiciously screening the real people out) and it would seem that we all do this. And…and! where it gets interesting (and beyond the scope of a comment) is that we all lock in when we reach the point in life where we have everything we expected to get.totally large asterix here
And are we to look for lessons in this six sentence story; to consider what we would give another try, to consider who we might be expecting to see when we find ourselves alone at the end of a day or season?
Nice take.
…even worse (see reply to Deborah Lee) we can, at Will, see ourselves as we were meant to be*, if we can just be quick enough with the glance to the left
*lol we used to do the what did he just say? a lot more, really need to get back to that approach**
** totally mean the asterix, though on a more practical level, it has to do with self-image (below that which we have control over)
“in a forgotten year’s October” also caught my attention. Really great phrasing!
thanks… (it’s cool how, when we stumble on a good phrase or word or such) that we get the feeling that it evokes in the reader, in the most personal of contexts.
We often find ourselves face to face with a self we do not recognize. This can be good or not so good…depends on how the introductions go, I suppose.