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

This is our second contribution to the Six Sentence Story bloghop, inspired by Mimi’s third(!!) Six here.

Hosted by Denise.

This week’s prompt word:

TENSION

“Entrainment, as exhibited in the ebb and flow of multiple disparate conversations,” the tall, thin man nodded in the direction of the smallish crowd engaged in the social mitosis common to free hors d’oeuvres night at the Bistro; returning his gaze to the young woman wearing a week’s salary of casual clothing, he decided not to continue with a full explanation of the phenomena.

“Oh, sorry; I didn’t mean to intrude,” the young woman smiled with a reservation that her upbringing clearly required she not share, and continued towards the safety of the center of the room.

Returning his attention to the sound of the room, the Manager glanced at the light-purple curtains, now tied back against the brick columns forming the alcove and thought of Jenne, one of the Proprietors of the SSC&B currently on sabbatical; ‘Now she would not have needed to ask,’ he thought, ‘Or, for that matter, any of the other Managers.’

Reaching for the book in the center of the table, the tall, thin man became aware of a sound embedded in the overall din of voices, glassware and the scrape of chairs on the wide-board flooring. It was a distinctive clatter, repetitive without repetition, four percussionists rather than one; he recognized it as one of the secret languages of dogs, in this case, Hunga dancing his greeting to someone who ranked in the ultimate social constellation of his pack.

There was another sound, barely audible, (by most humans), it’s timbre resonating a tension comprised of equal parts of alarm and defense; the image it inspired: an arboreal setting and the dominant female member of a pride of lions.

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