the Wakefield Doctrine

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

This is the Six Sentence Story bloghop (or, at least, our contribution to that weekly event)

It is. hosted by Denise.

The prompt word:

CHARM

“Loathe as I am to make this request, I need you to get a haircut and visit our friends at Henry Poole & Co., there are matters afoot and forces in play that, unfortunately for you, require skills you willingly surrendered in exchange for your life here in the Order,” the woman sitting behind the plain oak desk began to speak the moment the man crossed the room.

The uncut hair and loose-fitting robe, standard dress in the Order, was favored by Brother Abbott, not the least for the effect of hiding most of his physical qualities and nearly all of his other strengths; it was not uncommon for a passerby to mistake him for a devout, pious and thoroughly innocuous member of a sect, the name of which seemed always just beyond quick recall, of course, the Mother Superior of the London chapter was very much not a stranger.

Brother Abbott felt the fabric of his robe whisper downwards as a deeply buried group of muscles awakened while another set relaxed; had there been an observer, one possessed of hearing sufficiently acute, they would have heard a sigh, of resignation not exhaustion.

“If, before I leave you and surrender this version of myself to tailors and barbers and footmen, allow me to retort: ‘Ephesians 4:22-24 ‘I am the person I have always been, in potential and in actuality, I only lacked the access to this power‘.

“We are aware that what we require of you is abhorrent, Brother Abbott, we very much appreciate, in a manner that may seem manipulative, your skills, no, your talents, honed to razor’s edge long before joining us; it is of a value only enhanced by their scarcity among those inclined to choose the life monastic.

“The devout have, by and large, a gentle charm, and few, if any, have commanded a stage and entertained an opera house full of skeptics and nay-sayers with a variety of diversions from singing bawdy songs to slight-of-hand, even to ventriloquism,” Brother Abbott barely had time to wonder how the woman had managed to leave her seat when she whispered into his ear, “Your quarry is a man of the world with the kind of power that can only come from breeding and wealth; while we will always value your ability to teach, I need the shepherd to become the wolf.”

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

Blame Ford and Miz Av’ry.

While others have, in the past, contributed more than one Six Sentence Story to our weekly gathering, this year I’m caught up in the metaphor of the Six Sentence Cafe and Bistro.

So, this morning, I’m finishing my reading/commenting at Denise’s bloghop and, at the end of the thumbnails, I come upon two new contributions from the above pair. (I’ll spare all the memory-painting of my own version of the aforementioned bistro/bar and simply say, “Damn! guys, what was that?!”)*

So, while more in the category of (a) back-of-the-envelope variation on a theme, we offer:

The acolyte, the youngest ever admitted to the Order, struggled to seat the soup cauldron in the wooden cart; once his concentration resolved, as the iron pot weighed nearly as much as he, his face relaxed into what his young mind insisted was a neutral expression.

The early morning was still gathering light, like a rag collector harvesting the increasing voids in the fog that swaddled the cobblestone alleys and decorated the brick walls of Whitechapel.

The Order of Lilith demanded study and work from those who felt the calling, but Seth, whose name did not escape the cruel attention of the older boys in his class, had promised himself he would not cling, like a baby clutching a worn, mother-scented blanket, to the images and thoughts of the small handful of Christmas mornings passed.

The peals of St. Paul’s bell tower, surely a first-year rector working out his nerves before one of the most important of Masses, crowded the boy’s thoughts with memories of home, and, his eyes with tears that he brushed aside as he heard the scullery door open.

“All is ready, Brother Abbott,” turning his head away in a hasty effort to evaporate any sign of what the very young or the very old mistakenly consider weakness, Seth grappled with the pull bar that was almost shoulder level.

“I was older than you when I joined the Order,” Brother Abbott held the door as the boy struggled to pulled the cart out onto Thrawl Street, “Yet it took me years to realize that Christmas is a season of the heart and not the purse,” smiling the bearded man continued, “While you are surely missing your family and a tree rooted in brightly wrapped presents, consider that on this morning you are bringing gifts more fair than any you have received: food to the hungry and companionship to the lonely; this will be remembered well past the Yule-time.”

* thanks to Denise for hosting to all the Sixarians for contributing to an atmosphere and environment so conducive to the writing thing

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

This is the Six Sentence Story bloghop.

Hosted/emcee’d by Denise (No, not the Jazzy Jeff, Dr. Dre sort of DJ, more the Joel Grey… pre-war Berlin or, even, Michael Moorcock style)

This week’s prompt word:

FAIR

The sounds of wind shaped by a foreign geography, and the shuddering of more toilets than are possible in a single family home, eroded my dreams; the invisible security of sleep frayed into translucence, light without provenance whispered, ‘You’re not home!”

Getting ready for the day in a hotel suite is fun, waking up is not.

There’s too great an emotional gradient in the transition from unconsciousness to responsibility; while the comfort of everyday routine usually covers and obscures this most human of border crossings, there are almost always remnants from the night, clinging to our thoughts reminding us of our duty to endure.

“Willkommen, Willkommen, Willkommen…”

Detective Captain Anton Rilke stood up as I entered the hotel’s coffee shop, his arms extended in a non-hug-threatening manner; I had to smile as he exerted the rarest of interpersonal talents, the ability to create a sense of familiarity that both co-opted and engulfed his surroundings.

Behind him, arrayed around the circular table, were my Anya-designated travel companions, each looking at me with expressions ranging from resentment to excitement; like faces on a Tarot deck illustrated by drug-haunted medieval monks, it prompted a line from an old Allman Brothers tune, “Well if you ride, you pay the fare, Satan on your back and he don’t care...”