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 there is but one rule: our stories, (inspired by the week’s prompt word), must be exactly (and only) six sentences in length.

Prompt word:

CONE

The attic apartment, in the mill district of a small city, was one of six in a building clad in asbestos shingles, the preferred building material at a time when worker health in exchange for durability was the sign of good business sense; the grad-student enjoyed his cluttered vocabulary when describing his new home to the handful of friends he claimed, usually rolling out Shakespeare-on-the-cheap by calling it his urban ayerie.

One particular Thursday morning in July things changed; deciding to take a professional day, (his current part-time occupation being: ‘Find a job until it’s time to become a real person’) to his credit, he took his job as seriously as a Tahitian adolescent sitting before a black flannel missionary telling him the path to salvation was intentionally uncomfortable.

The first hint of a good day was the wood-on-wood clap of the exterior door three flights down; moving through the three room apartment to check for hygiene boobytraps, he debated where to wait for his visitor; the living room was unfurnished, the bedroom screamed of a confidence he could only dream of… and settled for the kitchen, which made sense, as it had the only door out of the firetrap he called home.

The knock on the peeling-painted door, with characteristic impatience, pushed it open ushering in a greeting with the kind of teeth that provided the special effects to many a bachelor dream,

“Jesus Christ, it’s gotta be a hundred degrees in here, good thing I stopped to buy you breakfast.”

The grad school student watched as a young woman, wearing shorts and a wife-beater (a Maxfield Parrish silk-screened on what little remained of the front), a gift he’d bought her on a dare (to himself) after their first date, stepped into the room holding a single ice cream cone.

He didn’t stand a chance.