Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
St Pancras Hotel, Euston Road, London. Interior showing the grand staircase.
This week’s Six Sentence Story is the next installment in our serial story, ‘the Whitechapel Interlude‘.
Denise’s rules are few and simple: write a story employing the prompt word and make it complete in six (and only six) sentences.
Prompt word:
VOLUME
Ringing the inverted silver cup on the marble counter, the desk clerk scanned the lobby, imperious gaze sliding cheerfully over the guests until finding me, “See to Mr. Egmont’s baggage, and be quick about it,” his eyes rolled to the outer edges of a smile that was as hopeful as it was subservient, “Enjoy your stay at the Pancras, sir.”
“May I carry that for you, sir,” the volume of my voice intimate and it’s tone deferential, I gave silent thanks to Lilith for the hotel employee who brought to work a fortuitous match of height and weight, which combined with my knowledge of human anatomy, several lengths of corded belt and an unoccupied alcove off the scullery, was all I needed to walk into the lobby, just another uniformed porter in a sea of guests, where my, ‘Mr. Egmont’, now stood, scanning the cavernous lobby like a tiger cub enjoying the novelty and variety of the world outside his den; stepping up to take his only luggage, a leather messenger bag, I captured his complete attention.
In the three tenths of a second I managed to be face-to-face, I acquired a combination of resume, diary and guilty confession; his was the response of a predator finding itself in unknown territory, possibly at risk: at-once and yet, sequentially, he appeared startled, innately confident, followed by a stutter of uncertainty, finally back to a rock-solid competency, if not superiority, over his immediate environment.
“Follow me, sir,” a tailored-flannel celebration of the military pomp of the Napoleonic Wars, my newly-acquired uniform permitted me to navigate the crowded hotel lobby like a blue-on-gold pilot fish through a pre-frenzy school of sharks; up two flights of blue-veined marble to where I hoped his room would be and, with no small relief, I opened the door and stepped back as my time traveler, Mr. Egmont, entered the lavish suite.
I leaned the messenger bag against the side of the desk next to the bed and crossed to the windows to let in some of the early evening air; looking to the mirror over a chest of drawers, I watched my quarry to pick up the bag and, oddly, lay it on its flat side on the desktop, the flap parted slightly and there was a silver-metallic glint, Mr Egmont’s reflection joined me in the mirror; I almost stumbled at the combination of fear and hunger that pressed outwards in the silvered glass image while, at the same moment, not by chance, one of Brother Abbott’s lectures played in my mind.
Sarah, (whose path in the Order increasingly intersected with my own), asked, “Brother Abbott why do the children of Eve appear so determined to destroy the gifts God,” to which he replied, not without a sigh, “Because, young miss, when they were given the keys to the earth and its creations, they willfully misheard God say שליטה rather than what our Mother Lilith heard, which was אַפּוֹטרוֹפּוֹס, which means guardianship and not the far more tempting word שליטה ‘to have dominion over the earth and its life.”
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Deep as is your niche. Very good six. Love the staircase, although I’d have to take a break to get UP it. Thanks for the shoutout on FB
Totally welcome, Paul… (btw I watch the real estate shows and totally laugh when they swoon over the total marble bathrooms… ‘Is there an orthopedic surgeon in the house!’)
Love the Hebrew reference.
I think Genesis 1:28 used וּרְד֞וּ “have dominion”. But this is a story. So Sarah and the abbot are associated with Lilith. I will have to keep this in mind as the story progresses.
yes, they (Sarah and Brother Abbott) as well as Anselm are members of the Order of Lilith, which I assume is a fictional organization for the purposes of our serial story.
Excellent details.
Dominion doesn’t have to be wielding power so as to abuse. Caretaking is a much better translation, to me.
agree and it makes a clark wonder, had the first people (at least per the Bible) had embraced your interpretation rather than use the more common one as justification for future behavior, how much different things might be? ah well, that’s why we have fiction writing.
A stutter of uncertainty – love it … I’d like to borrow this, if I may?
I love the Hebrew reference too. Yes, what a difference that one change of position could have made, and still can if we are called to choose, and soon may be. Very intriguing segment, Clark!
Enjoyed that. And the hotel setting is choice – I like the order in the chaos of such a place, and the decor makes for grand tours, as this six takes us on.
Lines like: “scanning the cavernous lobby like a tiger cub enjoying the novelty and variety of the world outside his den” and “blue-on-gold pilot fish through a pre-frenzy school of sharks” seem perfect for this hotel. And nice touch mystifying it up with some Hebrew text*
*off to G-translate I went.
Agree (‘the order in the chaos’) and it is such a clear display (and illustration) of culture and social order. I’ll go as far as to say that, other than an (American) courtroom, there are few places where the roles (as defined in the contemporaneous culture) of the individuals present are as obvious.
Perhaps more so, as there is such a greater, ongoing dynamic in a busy hotel lobby.
(God, I hope there’s such a thing as a flash novel, otherwise when I get to the end of ‘the Whitechapel Interlude’, I’m gonna need to go back an write the other 2/3rds of this story that would bracket otherwise our narrative…lol)
Finally, the time traveler is revealed! Kind of, lol.
The following:
“the flap parted slightly and there was a silver-metallic, Mr Egmont’s reflection joined me in the mirror; I almost stumbled at the combination of fear and hunger that pressed outwards in the silvered glass image while, at the same moment, not by chance, one of Brother Abbott’s lectures played in my mind.”
The fear and hunger thing is quite intriguing. Again, portent of some not pleasant events brewing.
I totally agree. Its just the question of who (or what) this Mr. Egmont is (or represents).
Can we talk about the messenger bag and its contents and why it had to be placed on its side and the metallic glint. Methinks the story is starting to pick up speed.
We most certainly can. Allow me to begin.
“So, Mr. Diary, to paraphrase my comment to our host, Denise, ‘Who is this time traveler, this Mr. Egmont. If, in fact, that is his real name? What might be his purpose that requires such extreme measures as to travel back in time hundreds of years to arrive at one of the darkest times in the history of such a great city?'”
well, you did create the character… what say you?
;p
His eyes rolled to the corner of a smile… Frame that phrase!
Thank you, Lisa
Wow, there’s a lot going on here. I especially like that last paragraph, complete with the Abbot’s weary sigh.
wise man, that Brother Abbott