Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
Hey! It’s half-past-the-month! Gots to get over to ‘the ‘corn’ and see what nefarious photation they have this week! (Protection Prayer is surely in order, “Bless me Rorschach, for I forget…”)
Enough of the strained effort at cleverness, jenne and CE hang out with a crazy-talented bunch over there at the Unicorn Challenge.
Stop over and read some. Like back in university days when you’d wear an overcoat in the cafeteria line so’s you could swipe an extra grinder or three for your friends who had no money.
“And I’ll be granted my wish?”
Avoiding the eyes of the old woman poised at the end of a dark alley on Pennyburn Road, I stood in a rainy November afternoon.
“One little thing, a slight transformation,” a fishhook of a lilt, that, were it coming from a girl, would’ve convinced most young men to resort to crime.
“A stroke of this,” it being a small blackish-grey thing in a dirt-creased palm, “You spend time practicing your listening skills and before you know it, you’ll be on the circuit signing your latest book to fans who can’t wait to hear what you have to say.”
Years in school studying psychology, more writing online trying to establish a following and what did I get? A mountain of debt, a divorce and a rheumy wink from a woman in the terminal stages of life.
“You will become, for as long as it takes to meet six hundred and sixty-six people, the manifestation of your dreams. Then fame and riches beyond your wildest dreams will be yours.”
~~~~~
“Honey, please! We need to call the cruise ship so they don’t leave without us. The excursion manager wasn’t happy with your insisting on going it alone.”
“For a country associated with engineers and engineering, you’d think the cellphone network wouldn’t have so many dead spots.”
“Look dear, there’s a…”
“Jesus Christ that’s their idea of a phone booth?! There aren’t even any wires coming out of it…. no way I’m getting near that thing.”
*
would take me; as luck would have it, my phone rang, the wind on my face and the dry-tickle of sand and gravel coursing up the back of my shirt ceased to exist and all I felt was the concave teasing of the keys of my computer, like the come-hither of a cybernetic lover; the emotional charge of the memory surged, temporarily shifting a balance I was no longer aware of and the corners of my mouth turned upwards.
