Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
The Wakefield Doctrine’s contribution to this week’s Six Sentence Story bloghop.
Denise is the host.
Installments from our two serial stories, ‘the Case of the Missing Fig Leaf‘ and ‘the Whitechapel Interlude‘ will return next week. (Don’t tell anyone, but we wanted to do one more ‘non-serial story’ Six, you know, to reassert confidence in our original story chops.) The serial stories are fun, but the characters are, for the most part, developed to a point of reality as to have them tell (us) what happens next. We’re just stenographers. That said, and pertinent to an ongoing discussion at the Six Sentence Cafe and Bistro about 1st person POV, sometimes even fully-developed characters need to get all roller derby’d over the railing.
But this week… well, not so much wildly creative as indulging in the true entertainment value of practicing the art of writing fiction, i.e. to go and have fun in one (of many) worlds and realities that exist in our mind.
The prompt word:
WEAR
“Hey, you didn’t say this grand opening was a cosplay thing,” the girl, all sophomore looks and grad school attitude, stepped into the sodium vapor wading pool drawn on the sidewalk, about where it began to metastasize into narrow, dark alleys, green-metal dumpsters squatting like urban trolls, “I would’ve borrowed something from my grandmother to wear, you know?”
“Hey, Bethany, it’s not everyday a guy like me gets to open the club he’s been thrown-out of more times than I care to count, and be one of the proprietors; besides, it’s not a bar, it’s a cafe.
“Whatever,” the girl blew a cloud of artificial smoke towards her date in a manner that conveyed impatience-edging-towards-annoyance, “This isn’t gonna be like those dive bars you said you used to hang out at when you were still an undergrad, where the cops spent more time hitting on the waitresses than breaking up fights?”
“No, me and my friends, we’re going for a whole different vibe, way upscale and artsy; think Rick’s Café Américain, only without the Nazis.”
Bethany’s blank look reminded him of the price attached to his penchant for companions with birthdays decades removed from his own; to her credit, the non-comprehension was replaced with annoyance laced with condescension, it was an expression reserved for the more attractive, or significantly younger, half of any new couple.
A yellow rectangle of light tetris’d itself up a short flight of stairs, at the bottom, a woman stood in an open doorway, her hair was streaked with colors that required more rods and cones than most people are born with; bending the black cylinder of her pencil skirt into a provocative hieroglyph, she smiled a whisky-smile and said, “Welcome to the Six Sentence Café and Bistro.”
About clarkscottroger
Thanks to your story, I’ve learned the new phrase “rods and cones” today. The way you describe the hair of the woman is amazing.
Thank you, Romi… (finally! something I learned in one, long ago biology class has demonstrated the value of education!)
lol
Very descriptive and Paula Abdul. Can’t lose
thanks, Paul (still trying to get that song outa my head!)
Great read. Using rods and cones (technically only cones) a.k.a. photoreceptor structures of the human eye to describe the infinite colours of the woman in the doorway’s hair was brilliant.
Thanks, Gr. As I mentioned to Romi, never underestimate the value of a good (if not slightly inaccurate*) education. That hair color thing? It’s a reference to a characteristic of one of the three personality types of the Wakefield Doctrine (the blog from which I write my Sixes).
* well, this is fiction, right?
lol
“…sometimes even fully-developed characters need to get all roller derby’d over the railing.”
Ain’t that the truth, as the saying goes, lol.
As to your Six – awesome comparison, “way upscale and artsy; think Rick’s Café Américain, only without the Nazis.”
Fun and… oh, oh, oh. Thanks for the earworm 😆
Say what you will about pop music… it will offer a glimpse into the hell-on-earth of adolescence in any number of decades and demographics
Great and unexpected name for the cafe at the end bringing us back to the present. I like those “green-metal dumpsters squatting like urban trolls”. And the reminder that there is a price to pay “for companions with birthdays decades removed from his own”. Nice six.
Thanks, Frank. Yeah, the metaphor of open mic night at a hole in the wall bar/night club is just irresistible. You can spot it’s development in comments (mostly over at Mage and Chris Hall’s Six Sentence stories going back over the last few months).
Couldn’t be more vivid! Wow!
Thanks, Liz (driving along dark city street, a glow of neon from down an alleyway off to the right) “Hey! what’s that place?” the passenger seems to wake from near sleep. Flicking a cigarette out the window, the driver says, “Nothin but trouble, doll. It’s a writer’s bar and after-hours story-slam that’s buried more than one aspiring author.”
Dude, you verbed tetris. How cool is that? And damn straight this ain’t no dive bar.
You are wise to have fun at this bistro for as you say, sometimes those serial characters must be shoved to the side.
yes ma’am. I did. (Full Disclosure: I never really played the game, but the image memory suggest vertical movement with integral horizontal shifts. I couldn’t think of a game that included round, black iron handrails so stuck with the tetris)
I know, for a fact. you appreciate the need/enjoyment of an exterior metaphor to share among people afflicted by the same muse. Like the old saying about fiction writing, “Hell, give me a pen/paper, keyboard/blog and I can amuse the heck outa myself.”
There’s always time for a bit of diversion, and what a grand diversion.
yes. (hey! seeing how this is imaginary, I suspect the layout of the place can change and develop as we go… (my current vision is mostly like my Reply to Liz’s comment above). basic urban noir
Never a dive bar when you enjoy the company of those you are with.
Phew, I had to rush home and change. Got to have the glad rags on for a homage to Rick’s.
lol
You look just fine
…Miz Lund.
I’ll say it again, I love the way you play with language, Clark. And that is going to be some café.
Ain’t it though?
That was quite a trip!