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.

Denise is the host and places only one requirement on us: the story is to be exactly six sentences in length.

In the past few weeks we hear more and more about the personal history of one Sybil Trainor. This week is no exception. We are privileged to witness her escape from a childhood in the Midwest to her first year at an Ivy League school. Should be interesting.

The prompt word:

MESS

Consigning the campus security guard to her review mirror, reduced to a mime performance of ‘WTF?!’ Sybil Trainor drove, half-lawn half sidewalk, down one edge of the Radcliffe Quad towards a five-story brick building that would be home for her freshman year. Spotting a fire-lane to the right rear corner of the building, she parked, grabbed the single piece of luggage in the backseat and, leaving car keys swinging from the ignition and the doors unlocked, walked back up the alley to the grassy central Quad.

“Really more of a lozenge than a pentacle, don’t you think?” Sybil directed her critique of the tradition-bound landscaping to a girl just ahead who was doing a passable imitation of one of those improbably-overloaded handcarts in photos of commerce in port cities in southeast Asia, except with battered luggage and a twenty-five-dollar hair cut.

“I’m here to welcome you, the Class of Two Thousand-whatever, to Radcliffe; as your Orientation guy, if you’re familiar with the history of our institution, I’m kinda the coed in the crowd,” several exchange students swapped giggles as the young man, standing above the group at the main entrance to the dormitory, managed to leer and laugh at the same time, “My room is a mess but the door is always open in case you need something I can provide.”

He was less than six feet tall, barefoot with a can of Diet Coke in one hand and a Radio Shack loud-hailer in the other; catching Sybil’s attention, he dropped the bullhorn, threw his soda in a nearby bush as he jumped from the granite porch and, with a sweeping flourish of his Red Sox baseball cap, bowed in front of her, “So, do you believe in love at first sight or love after first fight, don’t answer, I like surprises.”

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