Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
This week the prompt is PITCH.
The challenge, of course, is noun or verb?
zoe is the host and this is (the) Six Sentence Story. One word to start, six sentence limit to the finished story.
PITCH
A steady howling and an insistent clanking noise, one striving to hide its power in constancy, the other reduced to a muted-metallic shout conspired to pull the man from the deepest part of sleep, that secret moment after the last dream, but before the first tugs of a dry throat or insistent nudges from a full bladder.
The trawler moved through the storm, the building seas turning it into a stationary car on a fluid roller coaster, sudden dips and hairpin turns of tracks that moved on their own instead of waiting to be passed over and left behind.
The young man lay, one leg bent perpendicular to the other, foot and knee wedged against the up-curving hull on one side and the raised side of the bunk on the other in the time-perfected posture that allowed rest without constant vigilance. The low ceiling of the crew quarters spared an observer the view of six crewmen, each posed in perfect replica of ‘the hung man’ found on Tarot cards, worn quilts and rumpled underwear serving as motley clothing of sleeping jesters.
“Time to set in,” the first mate announced, pulling on the twine to the bare bulb hung between the ceiling beams of the fo’c’sle, lighting the bunks that curved up and forward to the bow, like store shelves over-flowing with un-tidy dry goods. The waking men rolled from their berths, unconsciously synchronized to the pitch, yaw and roll of the vessel, curses and invective filled the air, harsh morning prayers of desperate bravado, a working man’s substitute for virtue offered to the gods that waited in the vastness surrounding the boat.
About clarkscottroger
Good take on the word. I like it! I’m not all that nautical and didn’t think in that direction.
It is such a ‘different’ world (when looked at from a certain perspective). Woke up many times in world where the gravity had a slightly more lax approach. Tried for the very cool effect of being weightless on second and pressed into the mattress the next… as the boat rose and fell with the sea.
Shit damn! Excellent 6. I very easily imagined myself aboard. Scary!!
Holy smokes, could not do that job! I applaud you and every commercial fisherman on the planet.
thanks
I think this week’s cue has resulted in the biggest variety of interpretations. Good job! Just reading your words brings on that mind-rolling feeling of vertigo.
Very much agree. that rolling feeling is pretty powerful, it was a wonder that I used to be able to sleep through it.
My stomach was pitching (as it has been) as I began to read your story. Writing that is internalized is excellent, your descriptions are both fresh and familiar.
lol (I was thinking of the boat that I spent the most time on, the ‘Christine Denise’ it was an Eastern Rig (wood, wheelhouse aft) but definitely based on the bunks in the foc’sle
Awe-inspiring. How i would not want to be on that boat!
that one on the post definitely high seas… makes for an interesting workday
So many places to go with this word. I like it when we all go in different directions. Good six man!
yeah, know what you mean. thanks Paul
“…sudden dips and hairpin turns of tracks that moved on their own instead of waiting to be passed over and left behind.” That’s awesome. Great six.
Thankee, Miz Lee
I think we all may be feeling a little seasick from your sea of words in your sensational six. Excellent description all the way through.
well, the writing books do say, ‘make your readers feel something’….lol
I’m glad that you are safely on land these days :)
there is that
I had nothing to pitch this week, ok, I just got too dang busy, but thought I’d check on you. Well done you old salt.
Thanks, D! see you in the ‘sphere this week?
Oh, I’m around, somewhere, and I may be able to smoke a six sentence story out of its lair this week.
cool
Was this a flashback?!
essentially… sleeping alternating weightless then pressed into the mattress is a real thing… rolling out of the bunk with the roll of the boat and that bent-leg posture genuinely effective.
that howling noise wasn’t always the wind. in the boat I spent the most time on, we had a big cast iron oil stove that provided heat and for cooking. the chimney from the stove would often howl.