Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
This is the Wakefield Doctrine’s contribution to the Unicorn Challenge, jenne and ceayr‘s weekly photo prompt bloghop. Simple enough: new photo each week and a two hundred and fifty word limit on our story-ettes.
(Hey! We haven’t visited with our favorite (“Are they who I think they are? Nah, now way. Even that Doctrine guy wouldn’t reach that far!“) couple, ‘the Stone and the Crone’. (Previous Installments: Here …oh, yeah, and: Here)
This week:
“You know, I been thinkin…”
The man paused, the conversational backleading found in couples of only the longest tenures; bent-knee of one leg an additional support to the woman slightly behind him.
“Now, what have I always said…” the woman, an age and adversity-drawn caricature of Nature’s male-female size discrepancy, drew a breath that seemed to cling to her body like passengers on a slowly sinking ship.
“Only one of us can be the brains and the other…” her words trailed as she leaned towards the man. The absence of the expected sharp retort sparked a sad alarm in her companion’s eyes.
“Let’s sit here a minute, I’m tired,” the easy lies couples exchange, like monetary instruments or favored talismans, have never been immune to the wear-and-tear of time.
Crouching, his right knee an inverted ‘V’, the man did his best to position his trailing leg at a right angle, perpendicular to the other, creating, at least to a child’s eye, every bit a throne of ivied-timbers; the woman leaned back, her eyes trapped by the incline below the two fleeing anachronisms.
“Has it occurred to you that walking up stairs is god reminding us of the difference between man and angels? That, should we only recover the part we left behind in the Garden, hills and steep staircases would be celebrations of our wings and not a curse of our aging bodies.”
The man paused, a patient waiting. Time now a comforting breeze, no longer an endless headwind.
About clarkscottroger
Damn. Am I wordless? Let me try these, “breathtakingly, and sadly, beautiful”.
Another intriguing insight to the human condition, Clark.
Your similes excel as always; I particularly liked ‘a breath that seemed to cling to her body like passengers on a slowly sinking ship’ and ‘the easy lies couples exchange, like monetary instruments or favored talismans’.
But, if I might make a tiny quibble, it took me a moment to make sense of your 3rd sentence, where a ‘.’ followed by ‘The woman’ would have made it clearer for this slw-on-the-uptake pedant.
Enjoyed it immensely.
thanks, c
can see that now*
This was a weird one to write… had nothing to start, other than the obvious (which lacking the skill of our compatriots) I fell into a state of despair of participating this week.
Then, for god knows what reason, the Stone and the Crone characters started waving at me and the line: “…the part we left behind in the Garden, hills and steep staircases would be celebrations of our wings and not a curse of our aging bodies.” appeared (almost verbatim!) and I started writing. It was one of those rare ‘one sitting stories’. If I searched for a reason for my not highlighting the speaker in this section of dialogue, I’d go with sometimes I take the minimal tag approach a bit too much.
Thank you, though for the feedback. Half the reason I do these ‘hops is to improve my writing and that don’t happen without constructive critique from other writers.
*as in Sunday evening… after several returns to the post and jenne touching on the idea… I agree
I’m giggling endlessly, perhaps because I am a woman of an age and adversity-drawn caricature.
well, I had to find a way to account for our protagonae without being too direct (she is inspired by someone we all know and love)
‘The man paused, a patient waiting. Time now a comforting breeze, no longer an endless headwind’ – words of the week for me.
I don’t know many other people who could take the simple fact of an ageing couple climbing the stairs and turn it, with striking metaphors and similes, into such a deep and sensitive cameo of a long and loving relationship, with words that say more than their meaning.
While on the first reading I wasn’t too sure who was speaking, it didn’t detract from my enjoyment of the story.
A beautiful piece, Clark.
Thank you*
…partcularly for the ‘…words that say more than their meaning.’ I kinda always hope to bump into that kind of wordage ’bout ever time I sit down to write.
*as I mention in my Reply to ceayr it actually took me way too long a time to be able to ‘see’ that hypo-pronoun tag. lol (Kinda interesting… know that I review it, the business that I let a certain style choice combined with a liking of characters to not catch myself when writing.
A delight to read amd reflect on, thank you.
Thank you, Mimi
Huh. I hadn’t heard of this series just yet. Very cool! There’s some amazing writing here: “the woman, an age and adversity-drawn caricature of Nature’s male-female size discrepancy” is such a wonderful use of words! Well done!
ty yo
lol that seems to be the fave phrase of the week!
Came here to see your TtoT but I don’t see it just yet so I’ll use this space to express my gratitude for the Doctrine. You see, I was going to call in last night but life has had other plans. You may know that we had an emergency with our fourth cat who has been diagnosed with heart failure. He is back home, but we are in the midst of figuring out new routines to accommodate his needs now. We are sleep deprived but happy that our boy is alive and recovering. Shew. Wanted to let you know that I will call in soon (hopefully next week!) and that I appreciate you, Phyllis, Una, the Doctrine and good friends. Also, here’s a fun topic idea: in the past we’ve talked about it, but it would be interesting to talk about how Clarks operate under sustained duress, how Rogers do and how Scotts do. I feel like clarks can move into their more unpredictable nature. Lol.
It is good, your non-human lifeforms have done well in their choice of human companions…
excellent topic… betcha we look at that this week in one of our Doctrine posts
Lovely piece, Clark.
thank you, Chris
This one caused me to linger, soaking in how you’ve moved from tiny physical details – the angle of a bent knee, breath – through the minutiae of a long relationship and the way couples can understand each other without needing to say things (who’s the brains in the outfit?), to a grand finale: that wonderful conceit of a staircase as a reminder of our fallen state – angels, creation, our missing wings. Physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual – all in here.
I also agree with earlier commenters about the deliciousness of your language in this – images that will buzz around in my mind for quite a while.
Thank you, Margaret.
I enjoyed (and benefited from) reading your comment. (Not quite sure how, or what the correct terminology might be for this reaction.) But, reading your critique I found myself saying, “I did? …of course I did.” Not like I could not see the elements that you find a common thread binding, but it was very positively-reinforcing for me to read it.
The musician Joe Walsh can be seen on a short vid on YouTube in which (apparently coming out to talk to the audience of a show, presumedly before the actual performance. He talks about having ideas for songs that he keeps set aside and will put different ideas together to see if there’s a song there.)
While I would no more compare myself as a writer to a musician like Joe, the beginning of his explanation (of his process) did resonate.
Hey! I found the link!
This reads like the slow sigh of waves over sand, as the sun sets and waters calm. Nice feel here!
Thankee, Miz Liz