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, the rules are simple, (if not difficult for some of us): write a story utilizing the week’s prompt word and, and! be sure the sentence count is exactly six.

Pretty simple, isn’t it?

Prompt word:

LEAD

“Tell me what I’m seeing here,” the tall, thin man leaned forward, barely overcoming the headwind of excitement ushered through the door of the Manager’s office by the two Proprietors, now crouching to either side of his Eames AG chair.

The Gate-Keeper laughed a grey-white cumulonimbus of cigar smoke, dropping a tube of parchment to bounce like a steampunk munition, the hollow echo signaled it’s intent, if not actual damage to the felt and leather desk blotter. Opposite him, the Bar Tender lay an open tablet on the desk, “Nick may have tangible evidence to tell the story, the record from my very discrete video surveillance system,” the Gate Keeper lost an affectionate chuckle somewhere in his beard, “will show the front entrance of our establishment being accosted by a woman with a suitcase”.

On the screen, like an old wool blanket being aired-out on back-porch, a rectangle of light brown paper flapped, then flattened against the street-side door of the Café, the wide-angle lens convexing both the paper and the motion of a hammer; the latter wielded by a middle-aged woman wearing a surplus army field jacket with ‘Brahmagupta’ embroidered over the breast pocket and a determined look.

A flicker of light and the woman was now standing at the bus kiosk, half-a-block away; the video resolution was sufficient to to make the stickers on the side of the satchel-style suitcase at her left knee, readable, “Nantucket is for Mathematicians” “Six is the Number” “the Elizabeth Islands Arithmetic Society’; almost immediately, a city bus appeared, the digital display above the windshield rolled over to read: ‘The Steamship Authority’ and, moving past the hidden video camera, revealed the fluorescent-lit shelter, now quite empty.

Moving the tablet to the side of the desk, Nick and Denise spread out the rolled parchment, an oversized thimble of cast lead at one corner and a lucite paperweight holding down the other; standing, the tall, thin man read,

“Did you ever stop to think that Seven comes after Six, instead of in front?!”*

*

* ed. We borrowed, totally without permission a line from a novella by one of the giants of the Golden Age of Science Fiction, the late Alfred Bester. The story, ‘The Starcomber’ (1954) if you can find it, you will not regret it.