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.
Prompt word:
TAG
“Anyone still here?”
The tall, thin man stepped out of the perpetually-dark hallway that lead to the Manager’s Office (and other less hospitable parts of the nearly 140-year-old former mill building). The light from the public areas of the Café, like long-dead children playing a game of tag, failed to illuminate him to any degree, immediately sliding off him like water on a freshly Rain-X’d windshield.
Behind the bar, the ice machine chortled it’s troll laughter, neon letters buzzed like flies sharing secrets with the bottle caps along the top-shelf liquor and, quite redundantly, a street-sweeper shushed it’s way along the three-in-the-morning dark; he did not, however, hear the opening of a door further down the hallway he just exited.
“Well, fine, be like that, we officially declare this establishment a Talk-Outloud-to-Yourself-if-You-Want Zone.”
The Proprietor, briefly surveying the public areas of the Café, draped his suit-coat on a nearby chair and began to place each chair upside down on the round, wood tabletops; for no reason other than his nature, the thought presented itself, immaterial assistant to his labors: ‘As above, so below.”
*
About clarkscottroger
Ice machine reach a level of noise where I turn them off. Nice description of them: “troll laughter”.
I liked your explanation why people put chairs upside down on tabletops: as above so below.
always liked that expression
By all means, talk to yourself, you need at least one intelligent conversation each day.
lol. (I seriously have taken myself aside to remind me to be mindful of an audience)
What is the saying that goes, by asking the question… Except are we sure who’s doing the asking?
Delightfully dark Café Six.
“If you have to ask the question, you can’t understand the answer”
Now- this is a creative descriptor for lighting if I ever heard one! like long-dead children playing a game of tag,
thankee
Is someone else in the room apart from the tall, thin man? Someone drifted passed in the darkness, perhaps?
Plus, that wonderful Carmina Burana (have it on vinyl).
thanks! Chris… I wanted to allow a new element (good/bad/whatever) into the ttm’s reality… for future narrative branching
A minute. Maybe less. Captured. In the precise ordering of letters into words.
There are lessons to be learnt in this one.
yes’em