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

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

Hosted by Denise each Thursday. The link-in opens Wednesday at 6 pm ET, if you have a jones for writing or a hankerin’ for reading short, little stories, this is surely the place to be!

Some background on this Six. At some point in recent weeks, we had Ian Devereaux pick up a hitchhiker on the Southeast Expressway. The college-age appearing young woman was looking for someone by the name: the Sophomore. Ian told her that he knew where he might be found, the Six Sentence Café & Bistro. Only one problem. We not only did not know anything about this girl, (though we suspect she has some involvement in time-travel, given her stated familiarity with the Sophomore), we didn’t even know her name!

This being the cool writing community that it is, i.e. talented writers, eccentric artists, irascible raconteurs and sublime students of the human condition, we put out a call for help. Our Miz Avry came to the rescue by informing us that: “.…her name was Sybil. Sybil Trainor, a young woman who grew up silently despising everything about growing up in a small to medium sized midwest town where grain silos stood in for sky scrapers.”

So, let’s pick up where last we saw our antagonista. (Click Here)

This week’s prompt word:

KNOT

Sybil Trainor, moving over the concrete and litter sidewalk with the unhurried confidence of a jungle predator leaving a snarl-of-hyenas dividing the remnants of her last kill, approached the bearded man standing at the entrance of the Six Sentence Café & Bistro with the simplest of intentions, to get him to tell her where she could find ‘the Sophomore’; the old brick and masonry mill buildings, in a slow-motion shuttering as she passed from one pool of yellow-white street light to the next, caught a fragment of memory from childhood, for a chaotic second, she was thrown into her past.

“Not only is your daughter not on the spectrum, her reading comprehension and general aptitude tests are, well to put it crudely, ‘off the charts’,” the school psychologist’s smile of vicarious pride stuttered as she watched disappointment flare in the eyes of the girl’s father and fear glowed in the banked embers buried in her mother’s eyes; afterwards, silence filled the cab of the F250 pickup truck like a reversed-fishbowl, it’s occupants seeing only distorted reflections of each other, rather than outwards at the passing fields of Kansas farmland.

“Look, your mother and I work hard to keep a roof over your head, it might not seem that much to you, but we grew up in this town and, well even with your cellphones and texting and Tiktokking, this is where you’re from,” her father unconsciously reached into his pants pocket, jingling change a mid-western version of a far-eastern cue to meditation; “You just need to try and fit in, you might be surprised at how much your friends really appreciate you, if you let them get to know you,” the woman in the passenger seat stared out at the scenery with a longing that a lifetime of practice kept out of her voice.

Sybil’s graduation party, debutante ball and near-miss encounter with a socio-biological tentacle was held in the former Hudson Grain and Feed Supply warehouse, music provided by AC/DC and Spotify, her oft-maligned intelligence made sure she’d availed herself of the essential protection; without an emotional harness she found the secret passages that are available to all who are sufficiently motivated (or desperate) to leave the bonds of small town life and left before anyone missed her.

“Sorry, the Café is closed early, a private Christmas party,” holding the knotted end of the velvet rope that marked his domain, the Gatekeeper looked toward the oak and iron door as he said, ‘Christmas party’ but preparing to wave his cigar as an impromptu Cuban pointer, was surprised not only at how the approaching woman had closed the distance between them, but that his favorite smoke was no longer between his fingers.

Blowing an aromatic cloud of tobacco smoke ahead, as both silent emissary and petition of truce, without breaking her stride, Sybil Trainor whispered to the surprised man, “Ο Ιανός θα ήταν περήφανος”

 

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