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

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

A word-count constrained imagination contest* hosted by jenne and ceayr, the prompt is an image and the only limit is ‘tell your story in under 250 words’.

The evening’s whispers, like mountain streams, manifested their true power in the endless variety of sound as they tumbled towards the sea. Never a single voice. Rarely even similar timbre or tone. Yet mountains fell and oceans filled.

“Fuck ’em,” a smile like a shadow growing on a series of X-ray prints found voice, “If that was in Latin, they’d listen.”

As is the nature of even the most high-borne soliloquies or alcohol-engendered bravado, the words were cast to an empty house, footlights of a hand-crafted stage obscuring all but the highest-proof perspective.

Lifting the broken glass, the man, his girth an ironic filigree to the delicate touch of tobacco-stained fingers, held it up to the light in search of shards that might disturb even his thirst.

“My kingdom for a whore!”

Chin thrust, shoulders hunched, the drunk dared the empty barroom to duel.

The barman held open the door, Charon waiting to complete the journey begun in the light of a challenging day at work. The pride he proclaimed in ‘showing those management morons’ now resignation to the 3:00 am kingdom of empty streets and hopeless dark.

Hearing the door close behind him, the man pressed the broken glass, scepter of a kingdom found and lost in eight hours, to a bloody grip oer his noble profile and stumbled into the endless pre-dawn night.