Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
This is the Six Sentence Story bloghop.
Denise is the host.
The rules are simplest: take the week’s prompt word and write a story of six (and only six) sentences.
Pretty simple, isn’t it?
This week we return to the Order of Lilith for our serial story, ‘the Whitechapel Interlude‘ (backstory for new Readers under the title link)
This week’s prompt word:
FIELD
“Brother Abbott, you’ve served our Order faithfully since, well, since I was an acolyte, you know I respect you,” the Reverend Mother strained to smile sincerity, if not warmth, into her words but settled for a compression of lips and a momentary decrease in the intensity of her gaze, “however, the rules prescribing our course of action regarding your…guest, are clear.”
“I’m not questioning the wisdom of the elders,” Brother Abbott knew better than to react to the subtle change in the face of his superior, “There is something not right about this situation, not only the hunter we captured, but the time traveler she was stalking;” taking no pleasure in his superior’s fraying composure, suddenly felt both leg muscles galvanize him into standing position, a delayed reaction to his earlier comments about not getting enough sleep propelling him to the office door.
… appearing at the edge of the woods that surrounded the field through which Sarah and Katherina ran, hand-in-hand, the dark rectangle chilled the laughing joy streaming behind the ten-year-olds; a voice intruded, staining the pure light of a perfect summer afternoon, “Please, if you won’t convince your teacher I’m not a threat, at least talk to me, before they take me out to kill like a deformed foal.”
For most, dreams are nightly diversions by anonymous playwrights, to be enjoyed and forgotten in the commonsense light of day; however, when fatigue becomes excessive, these unconscious stories often adopt more personal themes and, in the hunt for satisfying plot devices, the subconscious author within us mines our deepest memories, harvesting the fields of broken loves and distant relationships.
Sarah heard her closest friend’s voice and, by a strength of will that brought her to the attention of the Order, and, enduring the pain of loss, doubled for the intervening years of loneliness, stepped out of her dream.
Facing the obsidian rectangle of the holding cell, she watched a single tear, ignited by the light of the anteroom, transformed into a falling star and heard, in the near-music of a young girl’s voice, “Make a wish.”
About clarkscottroger
Yes, you are right, the Reverend Mother is not as scary as I first thought some time ago.
I like the tense and dreamlike quality as this six unravels, and sentence N°4 is so true about the nature of dreams, while SN°6 is pure magic, whether reality or dream.
Good continuation.
Thanks, V
(Full Disclosure: I thought the same thing. Funny how characters develop themselves and reveal qualities that we might not recognize, on first meeting.)
I big part of the run-up to writing this Six was, as it often is, a challenge to myself on some technical aspect of writing, in this case, a shift in scene. I tried, somewhat unsuccessfully in one of the early chapters in the ‘the Case of the Missing Fig Leaf’ serial, where I tried to shift from a breakfast in Cambridge (the younger, Boston-based version) to a post office in Germany. The feedback indicated there wasn’t enough narrative continuity (a real term, I hope).
So this time (and here we have some of the mgic of blog writing in general and the Six Sentence Story in particular, I was not concerned about negative feedback (or any of the limitless varieties of responses that we have to avoid risk-taking) and so, tried.
Looked like it worked. (Even if I did hedge my bet a little, what with that leading ellipse… “What’s that Lassie? Timmy has fallen in a well? You want us to follow you?” lol)
PS: Liking the tunage to go with the Six. Didn’t know The Pretty Reckless. Cool song and makes me feel some good 90s vibes.
PPS: Liking the photo to go with the Six. Captures well an essence of ‘dreams’ and of the girls, perhaps before they ran through that field.
Surely the fun in the process (and, I might hazard, a benefit made possible by the brevity of the form and frequency of effort) is how the direction, if not the form of my Sixes are often enhanced, if not out-right shaped by the accoutrements of images and music. I’ve had songs (stumbled upon, as my efforts to find music is often as random and flipping through dinosaur racks of albums in a record store, way long ago, in the before time) make me think of a entirely different slant. Of course, for the most part, they (the songs I find to accompany my writing plays the more modest role of the random girlfriend at band practice. I mean, it ain’t bad in and of itself…is it?)
lol
(Lets keep this last part ‘tween the two of, ‘kay?)
Very engaging story – thank you.
thank you for reading and commenting
One of my favorite things about you (from afar, of course) is your madness. You take us places, drop us in spots we dare not go, and then sing us out! Aresome dude, aresome!
Those are compliments.
lol totally get that… (as I mentioned to V in a reply to his comment below) its the open, non-judgmental environment that exists among those of us here that makes any of my own efforts possible. More than that, it makes the process of trying out whatever might occur to me, fun.
I like the igniting tear and request to make a wish at the end.
yeah, going for the classic, ‘very common, quite innocent expression somehow acquiring a sinister lilt.
May I reiterate…Sarah’s gonna get her novice self in trouble! Who/what ever is in that holding cell is going to work Sarah until it achieves its goal and is released.
Do love sentence 4. A poetic and imo, spot on description.
Last attempt… Clark, this is Bedelia’s author commenting from my other blog, using Microsoft Edge. Can you hear me now?
totally worked!
Very revealing 4th sentence, Dr. Clark! :-)
thanks Pat… it made sense at the time (and a fringe benefit of diving into the world of a story is to find interesting ways to describe everyday things and such)
Oh Hallelujah!! Thanks for letting me know…now I just have to remember if I used Microsoft Edge to gain success…or if it’s the “usual” blog that’s faulty :)
sorry for the border disputes (in the land of the virtual) I have had that sometimes when trying to comment into a blogger based blog
Okay, now we’re cookin’ with gas–I’m writing this from Chrome, so it’s the other wonky blog at fault, good to know. You can disregard my latest email–I just wanted to be able to tell you how great your 6SS’s are…and I apologize that I didn’t know my comments weren’t getting to you…it wasn’t mere laziness on my part :) Have a wonderful weekend!!!
glad it worked out… there is the extra enjoyment of sharing thoughts on the experience of writing… looking in the kitchen if you will. Vintage Toy is doing some ‘post Six’ writing which I’m definitely enjoying as I do your serial (which is a different animal in and of itself)
Thanks for the tip re Vintage Toy–and for EVERYTHING ELSE :) :)