the Wakefield Doctrine

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

This is the Wakefield Doctrine’s contribution to Doug’s bloghop the Min-to-Min.

This week’s prompt:

The Dark Side of the Moon

1975

The third-floor apartment was nearly as devoid of furnishings as he remembered.

The bare wood floors, not the good kind that glow with polish, shamelessly begged for a coat of grey paint. The walls were the remembered horsehair plaster, rough-textured by time and neglect. The kitchen was the only unambiguous commitment to providing human habitation. In the harsh economy of limited space, the refrigerator stood, small and noisy, adjacent to the sole source of heat. A gas stove, it’s top consisted of four grease-crusted burners and an ashtray full of burnt wood matches. The feeling of common shabbiness startled the man, his initial romantic anticipation of a successful time-travel spell wilting painfully.

Without warning, he heard a line of dialogue from a forgotten movie: “This your last chance. After this there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends. You wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to...”

Stepping to the single bed occupying the center of room, kitchen table sacrificed to save on heating during the heartless winters, the man began to stroke and smooth a crumpled sheet of paper across the worn bedspread; a pair of reluctant lovers, resisting even as submitting. The symbols and words on it appeared and re-appeared between his fingers, initial ardor flagging until it could be read no more.

And all you touch and all you see
Is all your life will ever be.

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

This is the Wakefield Doctrine’s contribution to Doug’s bloghop the Min-to-Min for this nearly-Ides of March.(Plus… plus! when you get there, you’ll have the fun of reading ceayr and Jenne’s story(ette)s

This week’s prompt:

‘Paint it black’

I don’t have to answer it.

You sit, the room at one time, (and circumstance), might be considered ‘comfortably dim’ yet, in terms of lighting and illumination, (in a different circumstance), is now ‘nearly dark enough to provide protection’.

Of all the song samples on the endless shelves of the internet, why did I have to pick that one?

Some questions you ask yourself, clearly intended as rhetorical, are liars and saboteurs. The dearest price you pay for posing them is not the pain they kindle. The real price, in the only currency allowed in the realm of the emotions, is refusing to insist on a receipt for having already rendered payment for sins, real or imagined.

The ringtone, in a glitch that should not be possible, plays the entire melody. In silent lyrics, I’m forced (again) to accept that avoidance is not a remedy despite the momentary relief. I sense the dark leeching of despair as it grows, shameful masochism feasting on itself.  The song’s first line ‘ I see a red door’ supplanted by one of the last, ‘My love will laugh with me, Before the morning comes’.

Whoever said pain diminishes with the passage of time, never tried to hold three-quarters of a relationship together. While the dark may be the absence of light, love is, for some, an alloy of pleasure and pain.

*

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

This is the Wakefield Doctrine’s contribution to Doug’s new(ish) bloghop the Min-to-Min for this, the somethingth of February.

This week’s prompt word:

CANCELLATION

‘I’m sorry, this is not the appropriate department for what you wish to accomplish. Please, consult the directory on the wall or, download our app’.

The man felt the folded-rectangle of paper deforming the pocket of his jacket and moved closer towards a large brass wall plaque covered in letters, words and numbers; oddly the information was in both intaglio and bas relief. ‘So anyone can read it,’ the thought became a certainty to the man, but was of as little context to him as the opening of a convent door to an infant lying in a midnight-basket.

Looking down at the paper, now, somehow, out of his pocket, the only intelligible words were: Petition for Cancellation of Probable Future.

…

“We have reason to be optimisticas we’ve realized tremendous improvements in the efficacy of treatments for your type of cancer.”

The physician smiled with the professional pride of a salesman demonstrating the newest features of a car that he was certain his new customer simply could not live without.

Somewhere, outside the office, the man heard a voice, ‘Reminder. Unless altered, all fates are final at the end of business today’.

*

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

This is the Wakefield Doctrine’s contribution to Doug’s new(ish) bloghop the Min-to-Min for this, the somethingth of February.

Only two requirements placed on those of us driven to write: it must key off of a specific phrase, idea or prompt word and it cannot exceed two hunnert an pfity words.

So, head over to there. Reading the stories is fun. But, if you’re so inclined, why not write one and link it to the ‘hop. It’s a very collegial bunch of writers there, you will feel comfortable. (though, maybe it best not to say anything about who you heard it from, ya know?

This week’s prompt

Spy Balloon

Marie Sophrosynée did not cry.

Her only child, Dieudonné, stood before her in the living room. To fortify her resolve, Marie looked past her son at the room that had been their refuge since the loss of a third of their family. The photo of the family as a whole remained on the mantle, a man in uniform, a woman in love and a child that made them whole.

Marie hated and loved the photo, but endured both as it was the last remnant of a life destroyed.

“And, they said, because I am of legal age, I could enlist right there, with the other boys.”

Dieu, (as Marie preferred), stood with an awkward pride. His mother’s glance towards the mantle did not go un-noticed. But he heard the Sergeant’s last words, after securing binding signatures from the very young men in his office, spoken with the invigorating confidence, “Don’t talk more than you must at home, lads. Just remind them that you are making them proud citizens of the State.”

Marie Sophrosynée, sensing with the corrosive wisdom of a mother’s love, that to cry or to clutch at her son might leave a vulnerability, like Thetis at the rivers edge, smiled and put her hand on his head in painful benediction.

The recruiting poster he held, fell and unrolled on the floor.  Florid colors and cartoonish lettering:

“Your Country Needs You. Train to Be a Spy Balloon Pilot.! Protect Our Freedoms! Sign Up Now!!!”

Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

This week, Doug is directing us to employ a fairly common convention in prompt-writing exercises, the classic ‘Finish the sentence’

Totally fun bloghop. Way clever, talented writers. And…and! they let us participate!  Click here to head over to ‘Min Min Prompt‘ (tell ’em the Doctrine sent ya)

(With nothing but utmost respect, we might suggest that our host should have been warned how extremely enticing this particular form of prompt is to those of us genetically-predisposed to the Stream-of-Consciousness approach to writing. That howling? Had I not spent the previous week, laid-low by a winter cold, I would’ve thought to send a note to ceayr by way of warning re: our effort this week, ’cause you know, rhetorical license.)

“The world thought it had seen everything until…”

You read the bold-font, italicized prompt and smile. You feel what you believe are hints of stimulation, adolescent fingers lost in a forest of foreign clothing, as the possibilities abound. However, it is early and so, are not concerned with the mundane details of plot and narrative. The way ahead is non-defined, your position preliminary; no commitments have been demanded, nor promises made. Your smile grows, as buttons and hooks conspire to end an age.

‘It’s been a while…’ without thinking, as it has ‘been a while’, you realize two things: you’ve accepted Second Person POV status and you’ve added your own ellipsis’d sentence fragment.

And, in a fleeting return to the rational, realize while first-draft writing is refreshing, you’ve already used 123 of your 250 word allowance.

Your head swells up and your face falls as you realize the only way out is through the door marked: META- 2nd POV notwithstanding.

The metaphorical heat of the beginning, meant to be pruriently (if not adolescently) suggestive becomes the red-glow of self-consciousness as you approach the word-limit threshold. Above the abyss is a sign, red-shades of blue pencil letters: ‘Experimental fiction is a label championed by the undisciplined to defy the skillful’.

Watching the shreds of hope for a Hail Mary story-hook Coriolis down the drain, (in the wrong direction), you type:

“... they were tricked into reading this.”