Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
Migrant Mother
Dorothea Lange 1936
This is the Six Sentence Story bloghop.
Denise is the host.
The rules state: six sentence-length story, no more and no less.
This week’s prompt word:
PLANT
“Here, grab on,” I planted my boots on either side of the front door-that- was-now-a-hatch and extended my hand down into the dark interior of a broken puzzle that, until recently, had been a home.
No longer cloaked by a week’s worth of rain clouds, the sun provided heartless illumination of a devastated countryside: the remains of mud-crumpled houses, barns and indoor furniture left behind by the receding waters. The sky, as sterile as the inside of a Fabergé egg, glowed an immaculate blue, proclaiming its innocence like a drunk staring vacuously, while his wife, trying to stand, leaves red-slid stains on the white refrigerator.
I felt a pull on my hand, followed by a face that resisted the temptation to show relief, as if to do so would break the precarious seal between nightmare and waking life, thereby making both worlds all the more real.
A writer at Life magazine, at another time, referred it ‘the thousand-yard stare’.
It’s the look on the face of a human being, who, in the name of continued survival, has abandoned frivolous emotion; its the visage of a quality in some people that refuses to lay down and die, it is to Hope, as Time is to a drugstore wristwatch.
About clarkscottroger
heartless illumination bravo on that alone. Great line.
Thanks, man
Wow, nicely done take on this photograph, Clark.
Thank you, Lisa
Wow! Excellent!
It was fun to write.
We’ve seen that stare here, people pulled from the floods, too often.
Powerful Six. Particularly the last sentence.
Everything does tie together nicely, thank you.
A powerful description.
thank you, Romi
Well executed! That photo says so much and your words brought it more to life.
thanks, Lisa
(that is surely one of my all-time favorite photos) (interesting story behind the photographer, Dorothea Lang)