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

Denise invites us to her Six Sentence Story bloghop.

Each week, she provides a prompt word and it is our task, if we so choose, to write a story, precisely six sentences in length. It can be any form or genre or whatever the cool, technical rhetorical term is for word-wrangling.

(And, you can use this to practice. I tend to do that, at least between writing scenes from various WIPs. This week’s Six is interesting in that regard. To borrow a line from Loki, “I am burdened with glorious purpose.” lol…. no, seriously!)

So I’m always captivated with how the wind manifests where we live, in the midst of a pine wood. The wind is every bit a living thing prowling in the distance. This week’s Six is the result of a windy morning. It is also a result of, as young clark, reading like a wolverine-on-Atkins, anything of a science fictiony nature. Now, back in the day, Ray Bradbury was included in that category, ‘though one might argue that he was more fantasy than science fiction. In any event, I read a short, short story of his, back in the day, that clearly lodged itself in the ‘properties department’ of the visualization lobe of my imagination. Could never remember the title.

Looked it up this morning. The book: October Country. The Wind is included in this collection. You should read it.

Anyway, here’s my Six.

Prompt word:

Sensitive

In the early morning dark, the chimes gave birth to a solitary note, like a village of the deaf, mute testimony to their sensitivity, as the new-born sound bled it’s music into the air. Inside the sleep-fogged house, an old-fashioned telephone, stirred from a fitful sleep, issued a single ‘you have a message’; like early-morning flatulence, too loud to ignore, too embarrassing to acknowledge.

The chimes shuddered, more in alarm than panic, as the approaching calamity dissolved their precise ratios as easily as an ocean wave eating a child’s sand castle. In the forest surrounding the house grew a sound, like traffic on a summer highway, the muted roar of a textile factory or the sound of rushing waters, more than eluding identification, it hid it’s location.

Newly-aware Man, discovering the night was not a burial between the setting and the rising of the sun, learned three sounds necessary for continuance: the rushshushing of water, the necrotic crackling of fire and the subtle susurrus or the screaming fury that accompanied the irresistible motion of the wind.

Focused on the sound outside his window, the man waited for nature to grant another day.

music