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.
Previously… Concurrently with this, our contribution to Chris’s Tale from the SSC&B
Prompt word:
NEED
The tall, thin man sat on the edge of the very new, very expensive desk and fidgeted, no small feat given that the soft curves of rare woods were polished to a mirror finish.
At the mid-point of the rectangular office floor-plan, the decor went from over-flowing ashtrays, dog-eared Rolodex on a smudged pencil-hieroglyphic’d blotter, (just recently up-up-way-up graded by Chris’s gift of the aforementioned desk), as found in many a small business, the decor transitioned into a comfortable sitting area, all top-grain leather couches and club chairs; at the moment, the Gatekeeper, stepping away from the onyx mantle of the fireplace to the entertainment console, lowered the tonearm on the Clearaudio turntable and with a flourish of his Fuente y Padrón Legends, announced, “Led Zeppelin… first use of pre-echo on a guitar track.”
Standing in front of the red-haired writer, the tall, thin man extended his hand, “Please, la Raconteuse, I totally need you to try the Eames office chair…be careful of the buttons, the instruction manual is two inches thick and does everything but light your cigarette, you have such good taste in furniture;” pulling the chair out and seating the red-haired woman, the tall, thin man walked back to the office door and pulled it open.
Pushing a service cart loaded with a steaming coffee urn and full china service, the Bartender announced, “I’ll just park this in front of the desk and head to couch by Nick, been on my feet all day…”
“Wait, cher, one surely cannot survive on caffeine alone,” Mimi followed, pushing a pastry cart, “We have beignets, Tarte à la Bouillie and,” adding a magician’s flourish to the pedestal cake-holder, “Doberge.”
“Sit, please, all of you,” once the other Proprietors were seated, the Manager poured cups of steaming coffee for each and immediately wheeled the pastry cart in a hyper-caloric Fibonacci spiral until everyone was served.
Raising his cup, the Manager said, “To insanely creative friends who I was blessed to find after being washed up on the shores of Metaphoria, welcome.”
*
About clarkscottroger
An excellent scene, and so pleased that we have had a lovely time. Some coffee (naturally) and some excellent pastries (yum), and even better I had a go in that great chair. It seems what ever problem I had been thinking (meaning me, la Raconteuse) has gone away, happy days! Although, I guess that note will still haunt me… but such is life, or perhaps those strange, but fun Proprietors. See you next week then! Yes?
ty
just (for me) an establishing scene.
will continue the narrative, by all means, continue the story… perhaps we could arrange for an overhead projector (is that still even a thing?) where you can display the note for the benefit of New Readers (and memory-challenged Proprietors)
lets (just a suggestion) stay in the Manager’s office for the next few installments…seeing how Anya is controlling the unfortunate four out in the main part of the Bistro
you Proprietors good with that? Mimi, Denise, Nick? (not sure where Tom got off to) but we can surely get all 1940s noir movie dialogue intensive for a bit (see below)
I have also (for my own purposes) chosen to use Nick’s excellent iteration of the thumbnail for the SSC&B… if for no other reason that to keep from getting confused as to the timeline/storyline I’m writing in. Total shoutout to Chris for taking the metaphor to the next level, i.e. consistent location and characters, subtle branchings of narrative
now to get all teenage guitrist… ‘oh man, listen to this part…the solo!!’
lol
only for serial stories
Oh yes, fab and fab! Very happy to stay in the MO for a few weeks. Plus, could we get a Maltese Falcon? – I have one in my house, btw (giggling).
So on to the next week – excellent!
and thank you for the storyline… the most fun is in riffing off another’s narrative
(in the beginning of the SSC&B I used to use the metaphor of a place with a perpetual ‘open mic night’ (if a local phenomenon, it’e where a might spot that offered live music, would, usually a normally slow night, make the stage available to anyone who wanted to perform)… except here the instrument is a keyboard and like when more than one person gets on stage, there is trade-offs and improvisation always fun… so, it’ll be interesting and exciting to see where it goes)
(ps you will see the Café Six with Anya and Lou and Rosetta and the Sophomore and Ian continue as well, their plot will branch off from the one you have created (with the Proprietors and a mysterious note and such. Good thing Nick has created a new thumbnail, I used it for this last Proprietor Six and will use the old thumbnail to designate a different timeline/plot
it’ll be fun!
Yes indeedy!!
Nicely described. I like the reason for the gathering: a celebration on “the shores of Metaphoria”.
thanks
I know you already know, but you do have a standing invitation to write your way into the Café
With a Fibonacci spiral and Metaphoria, what’s not to like about this insanely creative scene?
ikr?
I’m certainly at least partly insane, if not creative, and write away, friend, it’s always fun.
Totally LOVE the last line!
ikr? as fun to write as to read
It’s the detail that makes this so incredibly vivid and alive: the Rolodex; smudged pencil-hieroglyphic’d blotter; I can smell the leather; I can smell the coffee.
I’ll check in again next week. For sure.
thanks, Misky… that (the detail thing is what I really enjoy writing… and the challenge is, for me, not simply the minutiae of a setting, but finding ways to trigger a response in the Reader)
It was like I was there, an uninvited guest hiding in the corner taking it all in.
ty, K
I could smell the coffee from here. Pastry, music, everyone gathered together… Bartender is aOK with hanging for a bit in the Manager’s Office. Good to chill every once in awhile, especially since….