the Wakefield Doctrine

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

This is the Doctrine’s contribution to the Six Sentence Story bloghop.

Hosted by Denise

This is a Tales from the Six Sentence Café & Bistro Six.

This week’s prompt word:

EXCHANGE

The tall, thin man smiled.

The final whisk of the broom in his right hand convinced the pile of dust, lipstick-tagged cigarette butts, crumpled cocktail napkins (smeary blue tears of rejected phone numbers, staining the ridges) and thin, if not superfluous, drink stirrers, to get into blue dustpan, without leaving even the slightest of residue lines on the floor. He remained still, the shape of his cleaning tools-of-choice somehow brought to mind Alice in Wonderland, with it’s improbable confluence of shapes and materials. The shape of the dustpan, at the floor-end of a vertical handle, wasn’t merely a half-completed box missing one side, there was a graceful ramp to ease the transition of material into captivity.

The man tipped the dustpan, with the practiced care of Five Star restaurant’s Head Sommelier into the white plastic container, taking care to not hit the sides of the plastic bag, lest the turbulence undo his efforts; the open space in front of the small stage was as empty as empty as a third grade classroom in July.

Preferring to exchange impersonal illumination of the overhead lights for the dim uncertainty neon, whispering from behind the bar, the man felt grateful for the other Proprietors (and Tom), who, completing the heavy work following the Annual SSB&S SOC Prose-off, left him to work alone; the dawn soon to tap soundlessly on the tall rectangles of glass and iron separating the outer wall’s brick support columns which bordered the sidewalk outside the Six Sentence Café & Bistro.

*

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

This is (one of) the Doctrine’s contributions to the Six Sentence Story bloghop.

Denise is the host.

We’ve decided to ‘visit’ with the MC in ‘the Case of the Missing Fig Leaf‘, Ian Devereaux. The last time we saw Ian was here. The last installment of the serial story, ‘the Case of the Missing Fig Leaf’ was here.

This week’s prompt word:

EXCHANGE

“Jeez, Mimi, I’d say “Love what you’ve done with the place, but… damn!”

The woman in the floral print dress sitting at the end of the bar raised an eyebrow, the last quarter of a summer lunar eclipse and I hastily added, “Pardon my French, tante M, too much time with the less-than-eloquent members of the underworld.”

Turning to face me as I drew nearer, she smiled absolution and said, “Boys will be boys; come sit and, if we’re lucky, Tom will fix us one of his remarkable BLTs.”

From the left corner of my eye I detected movement from the bandstand that anchored the club section of the Six Sentence Café & Bistro; being mid-afternoon on a Thursday, the illumination was, somehow, the all-consuming dusk of a late October day. What I thought was half of a ‘Voice of the Theatre’ pa system began to move, raising the hair on the back of my neck, then a beard and the red glow of a cigar appeared and the gestalt resolved itself and my childhood nightmares were banished.

“Hey, cher Nick, you’ve been working all afternoon cleaning up after the battle of the bands, come on over and set a spell and we’ll see about negotiating with our detective friend here for an exchange of labor for sustenance,” the smile in the woman’s voice was as much that of an old-fashioned lion tamer as it was a confident Proprietor.

*

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

You remember how, when you were in high school, a challenge would appear and align itself with so much of your secret desires and less-then-private insecurities? Maybe it was a growth (ahem! hyper-hormonal activity) spurt or, very possibly, the girl who represented the ideal future, (but actualized nothing but the role of some in society to be cannon fodder in the battle for adulthood). Anyway, you knew you could do it!

So, with all the mature judgement of (any) adolescent male at virtually (any) time in history, when confronted with a crowd seeking recruits to wear an emblem and march off for the honor of god and country (and a shot at the maiden in the tower), we said, “Sure! A Six Sentence Challenge. Between and among participants in Denise’s weekly writing prompt bloghop, the Six Sentence Story. Sounds like fun What could possibly go wrong!”

I’ll tell you what can go wrong in one word: Nick (aka Spira) and Ford (aka the Atomic Mage… the Atomic Mage!!! jeez with a blog handle like that, what could we have been thinking? “Heck, it’s only a wrestling match, strictly intramural, here’s your opponent, Andre   …the Giant!) lol

But a challenge is a challenge. Strong force binding quarks? The force of gravity on an apple. pshaw! Nothing to peer pressure.

Anyway. Being a clark, we thought, lets go back and see if’n we can build any confidence by looking at the first of these writing exercises, you know, back when zoe ran the ‘hop. Below is one of the first Sixes we wrote, from July 2015

Though they weren’t around at the time, if ceayr and Doug and Keith (think: 21st C Marlon Brando from ‘the Wild Ones’ that crew) and Chris and Jenne and Mimi… hey! Tom!!  Or, for that matter Paul , if theys not already writing their own sixes, we’ll be out in the parking lot after last period. oh well, it’s only blogging

Today, is a Six Sentence Story, a challenging and enjoyable writing thing that Friend of the Doctrine zoe (aka Ivy) throws most ever week!

The tree stood for as long as Jennifer could remember, it was there when she left her small town to attend college, it was there when she returned briefly, to take those few things that she could not bear to have strangers pick through and sell, and here it (still) stood.  As she approached, on this wintry day, she gave more care to her steps, as if the passing of time made her linger, not for fear of falling, but merely to delay. Pulling at her coat, producing what her late husband would refer to as ‘the self-hugging of the well-tailored woman’, she smiled, despite the discomfit that she felt.

‘The time has come to remember and let go” she thought, as she stepped carefully over the protruding roots, in a one woman minuet, around the base of the tree. It was only in the last quarter of her circuit that she saw, carved in the trunk, the passing of time causing the names, to be absorbed by the growth of the tree. Rather than being erased, the two pairs of initials had become part of the trunk and so, a part of the living tree.

 

*