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

This is the Doctrine’s contribution to the Unicorn Challenge bloghop.

jenne and ceayr have only one rule and that is a 250 word maximum for contributions.

(To read more from this series, go to ‘the Stone and the Crone‘)

“Remember when they built this place? How the stone masons insisted on returning down to Plockton every night? Either our appetites were far greater than I remember or they’d been warned about certain fauna.”

“I must’ve gained five stone over a single summer.”

“Aye and still working it off,”

Against the lower trunk of the 200-year-old oak, the woman’s burlap cloak made her indistinguishable from the riven and craggy bark of a tree that was a sapling when the pair had last visited. It would have taken the occupants of the Land Rover’d tourists more time in concentrated scanning of the forest beyond the lawns than their generation was inclined to invest in parts of the world not displayed on their phones.

“Here now!” To her left, doing a passable imitation of a coarse greywacke outcropping, the aptly named, Stone, felt a camouflage-compromising guffaw growing. Of long-term couples, it is said that jokes are nearly impossible because every punchline is telegraphed from common experience.

“Remember what you starting calling the construction site?”

The ancient woman’s effort to resist the urge to laugh resulted in a coughing fit, every old reptile’s instinctive tightening around the snake hook violating the safety of its ground cover-and-roots hideaway.

“Carron Carry-out?”

“Stop it, mo chirdhe,” the gruffness in the man’s voice, in unintended simpatico with their choice of hiding places against stone and bark, nearly disguised for his feelings of concern for his companion.