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:
GROUND
“Ethan Ethan van Decken…you’ve been in an accident, can you hear me?”
Light and sound, wearing each other’s clothes, ran around the car-shaped wreckage in confused hysteria… somewhere nearby, blue suns went supernova in a rhythmic sequence that pressed through closed eyelids.
“Try not to move, son, you’ve been in an accident… was there anyone else in the car with you, Ethan …stay with us, help is on the way.”
“Jesus Christ, with all the kids dying for Nixon in Southeast Asia, you’d think being safe in college would convince them to be more careful; hey, Sarge, there’s a purse in the car, better check the woods… goddamn, another one over here.”
With the world turned on it’s side, the young man lay on impossibly soft asphalt and tried to focus, to recognize anything that went with driving a girl to a nightclub after mid-term finals; all that remained of his car and a girl was bathed in red by road flares stuck in the ground like demonic votive candles.
“Ethan, babe, wake-up, you were having a nightmare,”
Rosetta’s touch, along with the sheer intensity of her concern, banished any lingering hypnagogic graffiti of his nightmare leaving only a fragmented memory of the need to escape into time to save someone named Sherie.
About clarkscottroger
Wavy lines inserted and I am not adjusting any dials, lol
Now, I’m worried. Side effects of Ethan aka the Sophomore’s time travel?
Poor Ethan!
Good edge of your seat scene. I enjoyed “… all that remained of his car and a girl was bathed in red by road flares stuck in the ground like demonic votive candles.”
I am glad to hear that Rosetta is concerned. Sherie has entered the story and I wonder if Ethan might have gotten in some time machine after all.
hey! thanks for the observation I do intend to keep the Reader on the fence about the Sophomore’s chrono-wanderings (I was going for a combination flashback/present day Six
Gosh, that was a scary moment and more. It seems that something connected in the past and in the now. Hmm, interesting…
thanks, Chris (as I replied to Frank) I was trying for a Flashback Six (trickier than they should be!) at least for me lol
this is a brilliant line! – Light and sound, wearing each other’s clothes, ran around the car-shaped wreckage in confused hysteria…
Ooooo! The plot thickens!
thanks, V
Indeed the narrative congeals!
This has that eerie effect of dream/not dream. Sounds like either way he’s gotten a message. Thanks for the Buffalo Springfield! A good match for the story.
yeah, sometimes it takes a song to make a Six
It’s a tasty six on its own, the song is just icing.
So, Sherie is the new entrants? I wonder how you will shape her from the putty of words that you have held since time immemorial, and the talent that you display every week in building aspirational castles with it.
Yes.
(Don’t tell anyone but… so this Six was meant to be a flashback Six (tricky things they can be, how to designate the part ‘this is the past’ and ‘this is current in our story’. So the Sophomore’s backstory is that he traveled through time from 1972 to the present. He doesn’t know how it happened, just that it did. (Note: with characters, for some reason, I have a tendency to leave some ‘fact’ to the Reader. This is especially evident when it comes to ‘bad guys/girls’ characters. I’d rather not come out and say, ‘This character is all bad or all good. Hopefully a little of both. Lou’s like that…)
anyway, with the time travel it is inherently unlimited in potential (plot twists, narrative shifts etc) but the skill level it requires is, I suspect, still a bit beyond me.
In any event, to answer your question: Yes. Yes she is. What we know: Ethan (the Sophomore) is afraid something bad will occur to her and he is the only one who can save her. Trouble is… Sherie is a student in the same college as the Sophomore is/was in 1972
the possibilities are damn near limitless (which is both good and horrible lol)
thanks for listening
Hey! we ‘know’ that Sherie has rather long, straight light-brown hair and has a penchant for wearing bell-bottom jeans, peasant shirts and macramé belts and glasses… any thoughts on what her major is in school?
Snap.Crackle.Pop … this has every element of *delicious*. What a tasty little tease this is. Well done.
thank you… both a tease to the contemporary storyline (Rosetta and the Sophomore going to Chicago to do something about Dr Egmont’s Time Mechanism) but also build more of the world of the Sophomore, i.e. his native context, college in 1972. In my Reply to Reena’s Comment I mentioned how tricky (and limitless in potential) time travel stories can be… also that Sherie while a new character presents very much a hazard to my efforts… the writing of flashbacks (sorta essential in this context to allow for a whole different timeline) at least for now, she and 1972 is a sub-sub-plot
I just throw my characters into a different century, and they’ve yet to complain.
Oh my, I need to catch my breath! An excellent musical accompaniment,by the way.
I concur on the music (it was an interesting side-trip (plot-istically speaking that is)
Blown away by this reveal. Language is both gutsy and luminous, Bro!
thanks L Just wanted to get some ground work laid for the Sophomore and his time-traveling. (I totally need to get the flashback thing down, at least here in the Six Sentence format)