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, constrained by a sentence limit (high and low) of six, there are worse ways to spend the remaining time you have on earth.

This Six reboot of a Serial Six, ‘the Whitechapel Interlude’ (stories from the Order of Lilith) that ran until late 2020. For those who weren’t around at the time, Chapter 15 of the story should give you sense of setting and characters.

Prompt word:

WARRANT

The Order’s soup kitchen, bracketed on Thrawl Street by an apothecary and a doss house, was in a part of London the more fortunate citizens of London viewed as a regrettable but necessary price of modern times; their interactions with Whitechapel was, for the most part, limited to the occasional article in the Daily Telegraph by Charles Booth and other Reformers of his ilk.

Seemingly years, but in reality only a month or two ago, I stood in the Office of the Reverend Mother and heard my future laid out, phrases such as ‘An outstanding acolyte…’ ‘Obvious devotion to the mission of the Order of Lilith, despite the occasional lapses in judgement, both moral and ethical…’ it was her final statement that brought me out of my stubborn ‘yes-but’ state of mind, “Pending Brother Abbott’s return from abroad, you will take his position as Instructor in the primary education of those who hope to join our mission to avert Mankind’s premature demise.”

Now I walked up to the front of the classroom of young men and women who hoped they could demonstrate the personal qualities they believed warranted their inclusion in the next class of initiates. I smiled without judgement at the posturing and bravado, until I got to the blackboard and saw, written across the top edge:

Ecclesiastes 11:9

Even before turning to face the class, I felt a shadow cross the walls of the room as a figure filled the open doorway; I white-scrapped, in all-too temporary chalk:

Proverbs 17:6

A rumble of laughter moved close even as I turned and met the avalanche of good cheer preceding Brother Abbott’s bearhug.