Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
This is the Six Sentence Story bloghop
Denise is the host.
Six are the number of sentences required.
(Note: Sometimes I’ll write a Six as a effort to duplicate a ‘style’ or rhetorical construct (or whatever the proper term is for, ‘How did the author do that?!’ This week, as I sifted through Sixlettes, one my favorite books, ‘The Lathe of Heaven’ by Ursula K Le Guin. reminded me why I loved the book.)
Prompt word:
ANGLE
“Is there anything you’d like to talk about this week, you’re looking rather pensive,” what remained of his white hair made the doctor’s grey goatee look like an exclamation point; the concern in the old man’s eyes took the threat out of everything, except his questions.
Looking uncertainly at his hands, the young man tried to decide if it would be better to respond to the doctor’s question or wait for more information to hedge his bet; the silence spread, like water on a basement floor fed by leaking pipes hidden among cobwebs and bad lighting.
“Yeah, the dream again,” the man glanced up at the office wall, the diplomas and awards looked like badly pressed flowers or Rorschach butterflies trapped under glass; the psychiatrist’s wire-rimmed glasses held a reflection of a man sitting in a leather chair like it was the ledge of a tall building.
“This time it started with hotel ballroom full of young people who didn’t want to be there, they had to guess a single word to win an award; then the next thing I know, I’m in an old-fashioned prison, where I was some old black guy and another prisoner was about to get himself in serious trouble with the head guard and I knew that all I had to do was prevent the young guy from saying a certain word, which, of course, I couldn’t remember.”
“I’m sorry, our time is almost up; I want you to put a note pad next to your bed, so next time, you can preserve as much detail as possible; this, in my opinion is the most productive angle of attack to solving the meaning of your dream.”
The young man looked at the beautiful woman, now standing behind her desk and smiled, as he felt the world reassert itself, for now.
*
About clarkscottroger
“what remained of his white hair made the doctor’s grey goatee look like an exclamation point;”
Damn excellent, right there :D
Strange Brew is perfect pairing for this surprise ending Six.
Thanks!
very visual as per usual. great job.
thanks, man
Is the entire 6 a dream?
The young man looked at the beautiful woman, now standing behind her desk and smiled, as he felt the world reassert itself, for now.
Good question
are there any other questions?*
*classic joke from the mid 20th
The grey goatee looking like an exclamation point is a nice detail to show the contrast :)
Thank you, Reena
How much of any of his world is real? Fabulous.
There is that… lol
Wow! What a closer sentence! Was he writing a story in a classroom to be handed in to the teacher? I suppose we will never know. Excellent story. I especially enjoyed your description of the basement floor.
thanks, Pat… yeah, the basement is, for some reason, such an easy place to creep-out on the metaphors
You know I love an ending that makes the reader take responsibility for deciding what happened/happens next. Nice job here.
Agree with Pat on the basement floor thing – I particularly liked that visual.
Thank you, Lisa. Was fun and (as I allude to in the ‘intro) a useful practice in manipulating the wordage.
Strange Brew indeed. I am glad he felt better in the end; that’s something. I’m a little disoriented and dazzled myself. You sure had me right there in that office though (if that is in fact where we were)
It was fun and instructive.
In the final edits (after I decided on a young man, a pychiatrist and a change in reality)… I went first from the trimming down on the wordage. (As the intro mentions, I was going for a re-write/fan-write, whatever the term), of the Le Guin story. Though I wasn’t going to bother with the whole dreams-affecting-reality hook that she did so well. But, interesting, when I had the action smoothed out, I found myself thinking, ‘Wait a minute, the whole thing hinges on the change in the doctor, is the Reader going to remember what the doctor looked like in the beginning? Interesting idea there, I write very much a visual first and then action. But that does not mean the Reader infers from the original set up ‘doctor and patient’, who the character was in the beginning. So I went back at the set up, first I added the ‘reflection in wire-rimmed glasses’ and that helped. But then, deciding I couldn’t go wrong with making sure the Reader knew he not only was a guy, but an old guy. That would take some pressure off the description of the woman in the last sentence. (Even at that, I stopped counting at the twelfth ‘young man’ lol)
Thanks for the opportunity to discuss technique and such.
I especially like … reflection of a man sitting in a leather chair like it was the ledge of a tall building. I can relate to this :) Another brilliant one, Clark!
Thank you, Susan.
Artistic view of a great six!
Thanks, Lisa!