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

Here we are again. You’re all still here. Fine. Be that way. I will continue in my routine and normal life, easily half of which is populated by people who exist as figments of a solid-state imagination. Hey, lived through the ’70s. Not worried.

That being said, to the task at hand.

This is the Six Sentence Story. A bloghop. Hosted by Denise.

Each Thursday a prompt word and an invitation to write a story in six sentences. No more. No less.

Hey, getting in that noir frame of mind. Maybe it’s time to check back in with our favorite gumshoe, Ian Devereaux.

The word this week:

Critical

I was halfway to the double pneumatic doors of the surgical suite before the gurney was even a quarter of the way out, barely visible under the pale blue blanket and red-Rorschach bandage around her head was Hazel Grover, my part-time secretary and full-time go-to; following at an oddly leisurely pace, surgical mask hanging like a bow tie after a formal dinner, foolish-looking booties on his feet and a twenty-five thousand dollar watch on his wrist, the surgeon stopped and looked around the room.

The only other person in the waiting room at St. Luke’s hospital was a thin, white-haired man with a book open on his lap; in the entire hour we sat in silence, he didn’t once look down at it, instead his eyes were focused somewhere between the double-swinging doors and a place I had no way of seeing; he projected a feral serenity that could easily be mistaken for standing guard.

He spoke only once, without preamble, in the tone of a one engaged in a lengthy and thoughtful conversation, “You know, this hospital is named for ‘St. Luke the Evangelist’, the patron saint of surgeons and physicians,” a thoughtful pause, as if checking to be certain, “…and also of bachelors, students and butchers,” he turned his head enough to look at me directly, humor in his voice and darkness in his eyes, “must have been a hectic day when the Church picked him.”

The surgeon, finally noticing that I was blocking his path, looked up from under a growing frown and asked, “Are you the Miss Grover’s husband?”

“I’m her…. friend,” I was aware of someone standing next to me; Edwin St. Lawrence managed to get into the room without my noticing his arrival, thats probably how he got to be the youngest chief of the Providence PD detective bureau history.

“Miss Grover’s condition is critical, she’s being taken to the intensive care ward.”

Music