Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
This is the Six Sentence Story bloghop.
It is hosted by Denise.
It has but one rule: use the prompt word and wrap it up, all nicey-nice in exactly six Sentences.
[Back in 2018, wandering down the almost-mouldy scented aisles of the world-sized used book and magazine store that is the internet, I encountered an article on the infamous prison, Parchman Farms. It made such an impression, I had to write a Six using it, (as it was in the early 20th C), as the setting. And, as happens, if we’re lucky, the real-world place and the fictional characters grew in realness. Not surprisingly, there followed additional Six Sentence stories grounded in my imagined Parchman Farms. For those of you who find the following Six enjoyable or, otherwise engaging, here are links to some of them: Polish; Release. and Legend]We will be returning to our regularly scheduled serial stories, next week.
Prompt word:
QUARTER
Lurking behind a bank of pre-dawn clouds, typical of Mississippi and June, the sun sent sapper raids of fog-cloaked light down the endless rows of cotton as the prisoners of Camp 8 moved down the lane at a pace that neither welcomed nor denied the day’s labor in the fields of Parchman Farm; the sun stalked the men throughout the morning’s labor, at times when light breeze faltered, raged down threats of worse to come in the afternoon.
Cageboss Roscoe Williams, seated on a sorrel quarter horse that put him above his manacled charges in every possible way, called out, “The State of Mississippi insists that y’all have a lunch break, the Warden insists that I get as much work as possible the rest of the time, so, back to work, the fields have more rows than you’ll ever finish, at least today.”
The old man, who spent his lunch picking at his gruel and, like an unlikely shipwreck-survivor, holding the wooden cross that rested against his chest, smooth light-brown wood on leathery and age dark brown skin; even as he staggered up into line with the other men, the thought came that he felt the way he had the first day on the line, only he was fifty years older.
Two things happened: his lungs got into a fight with his heart and his vision turned into featureless light; sitting back down, he was saved from falling like a dead man by the sycamore that supported him through the noon rest;
“He cain’t move and I don’t think he can see so good, Boss Roscoe,” Billy Tulene stared down and let his voice find the only person with the power to do anything.
“Tell you what, you boys pick his share along with your own, I won’t make a fuss,” as the line of prisoners moved out of the scant shade into the relentless sun of the fields, they didn’t see Roscoe Williams slow his horse, and throwing his Stetson down at the old man, say in voice he’d deny to God Almighty, “Think about the old hound dog in hell’s August heat, breath in through your nose and let it out through your mouth; I’ll fetch my hat if you’re still here at day’s end.”
