Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

Denise informs us that, this week, the prompt word for the Six Sentence Story is ‘MAILBOX’.

The challenge, (of this bloghop), is to write a story comprised of six and only six sentences. They may be ‘Hemingway concise’, (‘For Sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.’) or, as our friend Paul Brad might suggest, expansively Michenerian’ (“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”) (damn! wrong writer!)

In any event, it’s Thursday and the word this week is:

Mailbox

(10,000 BC) Nostrils flared like startled geese, he crouched just outside the cave, holding the still-warm droppings close to his nose, the hair on his neck pushed against animal skin clothing and without hesitation, his preverbal hooting and arm-waving brought his mate and her young to his side; grasping the flint-tipped spear, he scanned the southern California terrain for the toothy silhouette of Smilodon fatalis.

(2500 BC)  “Despite our Pharaoh’s temper, he prefers to hear bad news before good,” the man, dark hair flowing in twin waves as he bowed, held out the papery cylinder, ” I trust, Vizier, that you will survive this scroll, as it’s fibers tell of a lost tribe soon to return to claim it’s kingdom.”

(800 BC) “Finally we have a Great Wall to protect the Empire from her enemies, so long is its course, only the wind can carry messages swiftly enough; for you, my beloved, Bao Si, I will send the smoke up in an alarm about nothing so that the hasty return of my generals will cause you to shake with laughter and banish the sadness!”

(1517 AD) “Ninety five of them, Your Excellency…. we counted; Brother Luther used nails of quite a considerable length, perhaps he feared that the width of the cathedral doors would not permit each of his theses to fit so that the faithful, coming to All Saints church for morning Mass, might read without having to turn over each page; shall I have them taken down and destroyed?”

(1955 AD) Jimmy sat on the floor, fear drowning out the ‘purr-coast-clink’ sound of the postman’s truck fade past the mailbox, including that of “My name is Michael Anthony…” on the black-and-white tv and watched his mother, a picture from the mantle on the sofa cushion next to her and, bent over the fingers of one hand like a dead rabbit, an open letter; his rudimentary reading skills supplied only, “We regret to inform you…” the quiet movement of the woman’s shoulders providing the unnecessary translation of the rest.

(1999) Caffeine molecules split from the hazelnut-flavored caravan like bomb-throwing anarchists and headed for the part of the man’s body where they knew they would be welcomed, the brain; almost immediately his eyelids raised in both directions, like sunrise in a freight elevator, and he hit ‘Enter’…

(this weeks musical accompaniment):