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

This is the Doctrine’s weekly contribution to the Ten Things of Thankful (TToT) bloghop. Founded in 1983 by the long-lost niece of CS Lewis, once every week, writers from around the world link their lists of the Ten (people, places, events and) Things of (that have incited/excited a state of gratitude, aka) Thankful.

This is the Wakefield Doctrine’s list of Ten Things of Thankful for this first week of ‘Summer’s Death’.

1) Phyllis

2) Una

3) the Wakefield Doctrine

4) the Six Sentence Story bloghop

5) certain fictional characters that are fun to write for ’cause the truth is, they write themselves. Always a grat as a good character, if we’re totally lucky, just shows up in a story and, from their first line of dialogue make it clear that our job is chronicler (rather than writer). Anya Clarieaux is such a character. We included a sample just below the David Bowie tune at the bottom of the Post

6) We know we’ve cited the Wakefield Doctrine already. This Grat is different. It is specific to the effect the Doctrine has had on your Narrator, personally. Long story, incomprehensible: as soon as we started writing (this blog) certain character traits of our predominant worldview were altered. Specifically the degree of self-consciousness. Specific, mind you, to actions and efforts in connection to the Wakefield Doctrine. As a clark, the thought of error is not pleasant. Not because of any illusion of perfectionism, but because of the fear of scrutiny. So imagine our surprise when we realized we were spelling favorite character’s names differently at different times. lol And, yes, this is only a blog (or a serial story in the Six Sentence Story bloghop) but…but!! In other areas of our personal reality, this realization would have, to employ an rogerian expression, ‘made my head swell up and face fall’ Total grat yo

7) silly yard projects!

Before:

After

See the difference? lol

8) something, something

9) kind of a self-imposed grat… finally did the necessary edits to the linkz intro at the bottom so it showed our two newest Hostinae, cai and KnitCat

10) Secret Rule 1.3

music vids

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Anya got up from her desk, walked out into the corridor, and saw Stephen Eddington just as he stepped into one of the two elevators that served the 29th Floor of the Omni Building.

“Wait for me!” Anya Clarieaux had many personal qualities that might be categorized as gifts, as in, ‘She is a gifted musician’ or ‘He has always been gifted with the ability to shape wood.’ She was capable of putting a certain tone in her voice that was guaranteed to get a person’s attention. This tone varied in its effect. If you were a woman being addressed, you would find yourself assessing your outfit and find it wanting. If you were a man, you would suck if your gut and decide that maybe it was time to get back to the gym.

It was clear to Anya that Stephen Eddington saw her hurrying towards him, and yet, he made no effort to block the doors or otherwise hold the elevator. He simply stood in the open car and watched her rushing down the short corridor.

The doors were halfway closed, yet still two steps away, she decided that she would need to jump through the doors.

Anya was a woman who has never fallen, stumbled, or tripped. At least not accidentally. She stumbled as she landed inside the elevator. The doors closed, preventing any witnesses from observing this seeming misstep.

Stephen Eddington was still only a young man and so, he caught her.

Anya Clarieaux really enjoyed people.

She let the young engineer prevent her from falling. The muscles in his arms tensed as he altered her trajectory from one of ‘falling on the floor’, to a path that ended with her leaning up against him. She looked up at him and said,

“Hey! What the hell was that all about?! You were gonna let me stand there and wait? Thanks a hell of a lot!” Her tone was one familiar to every four-year-old boy standing on the kitchen counter reaching for a cookie jar. His confident smile faltered and fell. Anya felt the change, as the muscles in his forearms relaxed, very slightly, barely noticeably and very, very briefly and she smiled.

“But, I can’t say I’ve not enjoyed the exercise. This is the most out of breath I’ve been in quite some time.”

Stephen laughed and stepped backed and stared. Anya loved people, they made her life…. enjoyable.

The elevator doors sealed into one, the floor indicator lights behind her started to blink and change. The young man and the attractive woman began to go down.

“Trying to decide whether or not to discuss Silas’s offer with your boss?” Anya decided that she deserved to have fun, seeing how she was out of work for the day and it wasn’t even 4:00. Seeing him glance away, she continued, “You know, Stephen, you were picked instead of Orel Rees, for a very good reason.”

“And why would that be? Orel Rees is twice the engineer I’ll ever be. Mr. Monahan should be talking to him, not me.”

“What makes you think we haven’t?

“Look Stephen, this is a very big deal and a very sensitive operation. We know everything we need to know,” the elevator doors opened and Anya walked out into the lobby. Without looking back, she said, “Pick me up at 8:30, maybe I’ll let you ask me some questions. The instructions on the piece of paper in your jacket pocket will be all you’ll need, …for now.”

Anya walked out the main doors of the Omni Corporation towards the limousine idling directly in front of the building. The late afternoon traffic (both pedestrian and vehicular), was in full force, too many people and too many cars attempting to move from Point A to Somewhere-Necessary. Anya smiled as she walked across the broad sidewalk to the car, looking neither left or right, knowing that all (male) and most (female) eyes were on her and that none would block her path. Once settled in the backseat, the limo pulled away without hesitation.

(from WIP ‘Blog Dominion’)

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