Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
This is the Wakefield Doctrine’s contribution to the most excellent of photo-prompt bloghops, the Unicorn Challenge.
Hosted by jenne and ceayr the rules are quite simple: using the photo/image as your inspiration, write a story using no more than 250 words.
[Note for those of us who enjoy research. If you chase the lyrics, search for Harry Dacre. Eschew the much more famous/popular/admittedly-more-enjoyable version by Nat King Cole. For the moment at any rate.]
“Well, you’ve made your bed, now you have to sleep in it.”
My wife’s aunt repeated the admonition every Christmas we spent with her family, in our all-too-brief marriage.
The old woman smiled when we were presented, like marginal royalty to a decrepit countess. Always in the same sweat-worn tapestry chair by the grand fireplace, she would smile. That was the worst part. A mottled-purple moue, a dying anemone grasping for offal in a brackish tidal pool.
My wife, however, was grace personified. She treated everyone with the kind of natural respect that transformed the jealous into charitable and mean-spirited into kindly.
What’s got me pedaling now, in broad daylight no less, was how the old lady would hold my wife’s hand while locking eyes with me. In an irony possible only to the landed-gentry, passing years had been petrified the family wealth into the antiques that filled the old house. With her passing, the current monetary value of the estate was now available to anyone with the proper legal documents and a moving truck.
Now a widower, I became invisible and a non-threat.
They saw me riding back towards the house, even as the procession drove to the cemetery. Derision for the obviously grief-addled man, blinded the most possessive of the family. Their laughter, behind black velvet curtains of the limo, ate everything human about them, including curiosity. Which might have posed the question: ‘Where is Auntie Em and why is that stupid man riding such an odd bike.”
Daisy, Daisy,
Give me your answer, do!
I’m half crazy,
All for the love of you!
I will stand by you in “wheel” or woe, Daisy, Daisy!
You’ll be the bell(e) which I’ll ring you know! Sweet little Daisy Bell!
You’ll take the “lead” in each “trip” we take, Then if I don’t do well;
I will permit you to use the brake, My beautiful Daisy Bell!
About clarkscottroger
Great description of the aunt, Clark, ‘a dying anemone grasping for offal in a brackish tidal pool’.
And the greed of families seems sadly universal, so even in fiction it’s good to see them get their come-uppance.
thanks, ceayr
(yeah, it’s astonishing (in a bad way) how often there is a family member who goes all Mr. Hyde when a person leaves and estate behind!_
I’m afraid. I’m afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I’m a… fraid.”
Chilling.
thank you, Nancy
Scary, scary scene!
I remember it well. Chilling!
yes, ma’am
yy, Liz
Excellent story. I particularly enjoyed your last paragraph.
ty
Your incisive descriptions of the old aunt call up visions of the recently deceased and wonderful Maggie Smith – her last great role?
Glad their ‘laughter ……. ate everything human about them, including curiosity’, so that they didn’t understand what the man on the bike was up to.
Oh to see their faces when greed drives them back from the cemetery and they find an empty house echoing to the laughter of the ‘grief-addled man’ as he pedals into the sunset.
thanks j
all too rare when the bad guys are hoist on their own petards*
*lol
It’s sad how death amplifies the worst in some people, especially those who are awful to begin. Great, descriptive story.
ikr?
thankee