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 in out current tale...
Prompt word:
PUZZLE
The tall, thin man sat alone in the Manager’s office. The sound of footfalls in the hallway caused him to sit more upright, which, in turn, had the effect of elevating his field of vision out of the pool of yellow light bathing his book-covered desk. His eyes adjusted quickly enough to make out the silhouette of la Raconteuse filling the rectangle of the open door ever so briefly, like a crossword puzzle clue, ‘where is she going‘? On the basis of her direction of travel, (from right to left, forcing the previous analogy to presume an Arabic newspaper), she seemed intent on going up to the roof, the stairwell to which was just beyond his office door, but safely short of where the hallway became completely dark and totally dangerous.
A slightly despondent, ‘Hi’ poised to leap from his mouth, (well, technically, it stood on the tip of his tongue like an under-motivated suicide); but hesitation, far too often a quality of the man’s spontaneous social interactions, produced an outcome be more like falling two stories and hitting a balcony for minor but embarrassing injuries rather than the more spectacular dropping 100 floors like a malicious child’s copper penny.
Leaving his well-thumbed copies of Malleus Maleficarum, Testament of Solomon and Good News for Modern Man, the tall, thin man ran, (well, moved with alacrity, this is, after all the Proprietor voted ‘Most Likely to Accede’), calling out, “Hey wait for me;” unfortunately, at that moment, all corridor light bulbs chose to go dark.
*
About clarkscottroger
Nice description of her “filling the rectangle of the open door ever so briefly, like a crossword puzzle clue”.
yeah, that was the fun part (to write) in this Six… especially the part about needing to think of it (where the crossword puzzle was) being in an Arabic newspaper lol
Amazing how the hallway just wants to stay so secretive.
ikr?
(surely all we former children have had experiences with such hallways)
Ooh, suddenly darkness… she hadn’t expected that. Hmm, what was happening?
I suspect la Raconteuse made it to the stairwell and up to the roof safely
…now, of course, getting back down is another matter
lol
I wanna morph myself into there and explore the place myself.
But my curiosity would probably be fatal.
Not at all (at least the fatal part, lol)
the Six Sentence Café & Bistro is a most remarkable ‘place’… while there is a structure and design, aka floor plan, there are plenty of passage ways (not to mention four storeys above the Café* and then the roof (as Chris is visiting in her Six this week).
You are invited to come and visit. The coolest thing about this imaginary place in a virtual reality is it’s ‘persistence’. It is the same no matter how much time passes (though, for the record, we added the kitchen (accessed by double swinging door (with single round windows in each (of course)) located in the middle of the back wall (mostly rows of liquor bottles) of the long, darkwood bar that starts just as you enter the Bistro, runs along on the right, straight to the back wall and the always-dark hallway that leads to the Manager’s Office and the staircase and… less benign rooms and such ….
where was I? lol
stop in any Wednesday/Thursday Six Sentence-istically speaking.
We refer to this as a ‘write-on’ there are a number of ways to do it, a situation (narrative) that leaves and opening (for your character) or just walk in. No rules other than we generally don’t write dialogue for other patrons (though you’ll see me mention a nod or a smile from, say Mimi (in the last Six with Lou in it
…oh man! speaking of challenges, we could invite you to stop by Lou Caesare’s place some Six!**
ask anyone! Guests have included Reena and Frank they can tell you how fun it was. they both showed up towards the end of a Six (Thursday/Friday) so there was not a lot of interaction, but I get the impression it was, for both, a positive literary-fictional affair.
*the Café is on the ground floor of a former mill building of granite and brick construction, c. 1900 in the middle of a medium-sized city
** Lou’s place is the Bottom of the Sea Strip Club and Lounge heh heh… not to worry, the Lounge is semi-separated from the strip club and, of course, despite his intimidating demeanor, Lou is a gentleman in all the important ways