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

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

Curated by Denise, the only requirement: make the sentence count come out as six and not, for example, twenty-three. cool?

This is ‘an Ian Devereaux’ story. For those who prefer their continuity as …continuous as possible, this Six is post-chronologically linked to last week’s Six. (yeah, c, I coulda said ‘sequel’ or used a ‘previously on…’ but it wouldn’t have been as much fun.) And, just to avoid any confusion… (lol, as if) this Six is from the world of the Ian Devereux stories, ‘the Case of the Missing Starr‘ and the (WIP) ‘the Case of the Missing Fig Leaf‘ but not necessarily a direct continuation of a current storyline.

This week’s prompt word:

METER

I’d just begun to get the rhythm of the traffic on the Southeast Expressway; driving, especially at near-three-digit speed, is like writing poetry in a two-dimension scrolling reality, the highway ahead a narrative poem of unmarked stanzas approaching at the speed of life and the meter is always personal.

Leanne Thunberg, 9.2 miles in my rearview mirror, appeared in my mind with an expression most frequently on display after either I’d discovered a new, secret place in our shared bed or posed, in all seriousness, a question such as, “ok, now if you had to pick one, which of the three primary POVs would you want as your sole way of relating to the world around you, 1st Person, 2nd or 3rd”?

She always laughed in a way that made me feel like I had something to be proud of, if only I could figure out what it was; the traffic began to thin out and Leanne’s voice was replaced by that of my grandparents telling me about how, when they were young, they’d hitchhike up to Boston for a concert and always mentioned the Ho Chi Minh gas tanks that caused such an uproar at the time.

Slowing down to eighty-five to see if the apocryphal silhouette was visible from the southbound lanes, a dull-flicker of bright blue flannel in the breakdown lane hauled me out of the nineteen-sixties.

A college-age girl, dressed like the sole survivor of an LL Bean truck crashing through a Salvation Army storefront was standing in the breakdown lane about eight car lengths ahead; the first indication that I’d decided to slow down to investigate was the sound of car horns, dopplering at high volume as I crossed three lanes at a rather aggressive rate of deceleration, I smiled at the ‘dopplering’ but it cold-water shrank as the girl ran towards my car.

Two things happened that felt simultaneous but took at least four minutes: bending from the knees, the fringe of her antique suede swayed into a curtain which, a split-second later, parted to reveal a very small dog under one arm and, under the other, an army green knapsack; after running in a manner that we’d all like to believe we were ever capable of, and side-hip bending into the front passenger seat of my car, said with a smile, “Thanks, man, I’d given up all hope of getting a ride!”