Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
This is a Six Sentence Story
Hosted by Denise each week, the Six Sentence bloghop has only one rule: write a six sentence story employing the week’s prompt word.
Pretty simple, isn’t it?
Every other week we offer an installment from ‘the Case of the Missing Fig Leaf‘ which is, of course, our current Ian Devereaux serial mystery.
Prompt word:
WAX
“Yes, that’s Elias… my former….Doctor Thunberg.”
Competing with the cold hiss of the fluorescent lights, the detachment in Leanne’s voice brought to mind dialogue balloons that float above the characters in a comic book; authenticity was not in question, her emotional investment in speaking for the man, now a thing, a body, laying on a stainless steel tray was.
I stepped behind my client and friend, my right arm and chest exactly two inches from her left arm and back; I maintained a distance close enough to prevent any chance unsteadiness from cascading into vulnerability, while, in counterpoint to the flickering illumination, sadness and anger waxed and waned in a silent duet.
Leanne’s ex was discovered on the granite steps of the Museum Wiesbaden, the wreckage of a Porsche 930 an impromptu sculpture along the street, crumpled metal and glass throwing moon-glittered patterns on the dark asphalt.
The sports car was empty of living passengers; Elias would have died instantly from attempting to decelerate from 100 mph to 0, in an infinitely short time; the coroner’s report cited speed and alcohol as probable factors.
After we’d returned to our hotel and Leanne retreated to the neutrality of sleep, I called the number on the hotel registration card among Elias’s effects; after the desk clerk offered shock, condolences and sympathy, she asked, “And his young lady companion, she is also dead?”
About clarkscottroger
Wow! Just, wow!
thankee, Miz Dyanne
He was not alone, though alone in the morgue. It leaves one wondering what will happen next.
I can assure you we will find out
The last line could have been a little more wistful :)
ahh.. but she lives, (the young woman being, Lacey Whitelaw who was interrogate along with Elias but was permitted to leave*)
*no thanks to Elias Thunberg who totally went St Peter on her (denied knowing her)
Fave picks: “sadness and anger waxed and waned in a silent duet.”; “the wreckage of a Porsche 930 an impromptu sculpture along the street, crumpled metal and glass throwing moon-glittered patterns on the dark asphalt.” (splendidly vivid visual!); ” Leanne retreated to the neutrality of sleep” ( I only WISH my sleep was ‘neutral space’!). And I love that you’ve ended with a suspenseful question :) Excellent best-selling authors leave readers hungering for each new chapter! Well done, my friend!
Jael beat me here with my comments exactly! You are a gifted writer indeed.
One variation of the stainless steel serving tray – very nice imagery. I especially like his calculated support without touching – nicely done.
thanks (I liked that element too)
What they said. Seriously, you make me jealous each week with how much you get into six sentences. Great six. and Bogie.
lol thank you
to paraphrase/misquote Gordon Gekko ‘Jealousy is good.’ (I’m actually serious, or at least as serious as I can get in a world that is virtual…)lol I feel the same about your Sixes (and a handful of others)… that said, I don’t feel bad (about jealousy) when it leads to keeping me trying to understand how its done, (your own engaging yet spare Sixes) and therefore put me closer to improving.
Ah, the innocent question revealing new information. Well done.
Thank you, M
Well, if you hadn’t hooked me with “the Case of the Missing Fig Leaf” before (you did, lol), I would be with this installment. Well done sir!
ty
You can turn those coins into spinning dancers and leave us amazed! Great work!
thanks, Lisa
One can only picture that terrible crash happening – aided by your excellent visuals of: “…an impromptu sculpture along the street…” and then the reduction of life in: “…the man, now a thing, a body, laying on a stainless steel tray…”
Good Sixing as always in this series, a bit shorter than usual, but I think the brevity of it lends well to the gravity of the situation. The gaps between each sentence here are like those ‘dead pauses’ and ‘heavy silences’ (in real life) when no one knows what to do or say next.
Thanks, V
Full Disclosure: the sparse wordage is less a deliberate (or, at least, direct) result of creative choice as it was an effort to go the ‘baby shoes’ route*
…in any event, I struggle with the choice of going for shadow box style or cine-visual** style of writing. To cause the Reader to create the scene in their minds or let them watch. Most of the time, when writing, I’m seeing the scene in my head to start. Then details, then back to the scene from the perspective of entrance (or lead in to action) and exit (what happens as we close the book).
Invariably I get caught up in the idea of perfect words make the reader see the shit I know the character is seeing…. where are those words?
So this week’s Six is the product of the editing phase as opposed to the creative, though arguably, both are one and the same.
Doubt I would go the flash fiction/deep POV route exclusively, but you know how it is, better to be able to and choose not, than not to be able to and hope…
*apocryphal tale of Hemingway and his buddies sitting around a table at the Algonquin or some such place, drinking and trying to out-bro each other when someone, Dorthy Parker (or Emily Post or,Gertrude Stein) be sayin, ‘Someone write a short story!’
Hemingway, according to one version of the story, he say, ‘Gimme that napkin and I’ll betcha ten dollar, I’ll beat yer all!” Pushed back in his chair, the Newtonian consequence of a most prodigious belch, he added, “I’ll murderlize ya,”
A minute later, on the napkin: ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn’
…. I would suggest that was the, like the first Led Zeppelin album was to hard rock, the birth of flashfiction
** not a ‘real’ word