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, I need you, Brother Anselm to 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:
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:
A rumble of laughter moved close even as I turned and met the avalanche of good cheer preceding Brother Abbott’s bearhug.
About clarkscottroger
Love it. A very nice bit of historical fiction (Charles Booth’s study of poverty in Victorian London, The Telegraph’s connection to him, Whitechapel — although the Order of Lilith might be slightly fictional. And such a big smile to read that both you and Denise hooked on to * avalanche*.
I hope you continue this series – totally enjoyable.
TY, M
if I may indulge in a little conceit, I’m taken to referring to this (and other like storylines) as ‘historical fantasy’ (not certain if it is yet a recognized genre)
I could go on, at length, about the Order of Lilith, but being woven into so many of my serials (the other notable WIP: ‘the Search for the Missing Fig Leaf (an Ian Devereaux mystery)’ I might be well-advised to leave it to future Readers to discover.
ok. a little…
the oldest of secret societies, it is the age-old resistance movement to the dominance of patriarchy. the Order is dedicated to serving as a counter-balance to the hurtle-to-the-cliff-edge of the Sons of Adam (i.e. capitalism, militarism most -isms devoted to an wildly unbalanced interpretation of Genesis 1:28).
Contrary to re-write, Adam’s first wife felt that flipping-off Adam and his Big-buddy-in-the-sky and walking out of the Garden wasn’t quite all the effect she would have on the Path of Mankind. The repeated teetering on the brink? Look closely enough and you will see the touch of the Order of Lilith
“Historical Fantasy” is a recognised genre (dewey dec 800s and then by writer’s name), which includes real historical context with fantasy (magic or supernatural elements). There — you have a whole audience waiting to read your writing.
ah! I knew I was on to something! Though now I wonder about the distinction between fiction and fantasy (in writing stories and such)…wait lemme check with DuckDuckGo…
damn! hey thanks for the insight, I barely managed to get out of the world of real authors and the rules of proper writing… I am hyper-allergenic to this part of ‘the business I’ve choosen’*
anything involving instruction on writing good can lock my creative side in a dark room without lights and barely enough air to breath (why, yes, that manifestation of writing advice is so rogerian.
I think I’ll go with speculative history. lol
*Godfather II
Oh gosh, a blackboard and some chalk (because I’m so old). But still, good to see Brother Abbott, things are looking up, I would say.
totally!
With Brother Abbott’s bearhug it sounds like Brother Anselm has been accepted back into the order in spite of his lapses of judgement.
surely any fraternity/sorority (laity or clergy) that doesn’t embrace forgiveness is wanting
It sounds like this was a very short promotion, or am I reading it incorrectly?
yes, from our perspective…
(the challenge for me was to ‘account’ for Brother Abbott’s absence to allow Anselm to become head teacher… all pretty much for any Reader who might not have been around (or remembered) the last installment back in 2020
Reminds me of Joel 2:28
“… your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions.”
Thank you
I did as you suggested and travelled back five years, and I’m pleased I did! Despite cringing as I imagined his finger nails scaping the blackboard, I was totally absorbed. Looking forward to another installment. 2030?
yeah, I was getting tangled up in trying to do segue from where we left off (2020) and now… figured, what the heck, get the characters on the page let the adventures begin!
This was really well written. I love the photo- so many stories haunting it! I did go back to the Order of Lilith for some background. I have to say I am quite sorry the mission never achieved their objective of averting Mankind’s premature demise-because we could have used a little help in that area.
thank you… it, Victorian London… such a carnal milieu for all of it’s seeming commonality with our world (or at least any modern urban setting) it must have been… unbearable…and yet millions did… funny thing, this Human race
the Order of Lilith reflects the one concession to the realpolitik of the patriarchy; she learned to use the lever rather than the hammer, work in the shadows, influence rather than force, so the Sons of Adam have not yet achieved victory (I mean seriously, consider the hubris of the patriarchy somehow Genesis included Lilith… not helpful to the program. what do they do? send in the editors! serially, once discovered (sometime around 400 BC by some accounts, all they did was redescribe the character (“Not the first woman. A demon that kills babies! Like a screech owl. Eve is the only first female! Cause we said so!’) lol