Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
Here we are at Thursday already, which means it’s time of the delightful, self-induced torment that accompanies my determined effort to meet the challenge of zoe (nee Josie)’s ‘Six Sentence Story‘. It’s fun. It’s aggravating and I believe I learn something every time I hit publish.
It took only a glance to know the TV antenna was damaged beyond repair, the real question was how to disconnect it and throw it from the roof, thin metal arms bent in every possible direction, a single mass, courtesy of the wires that connected the parts and once gave life and function to this relic of pre-cable TV. Wire cutters and an increasing desire to be anywhere but on a roof, made subtlety and finesse the briefest of distractions, clip<>…clip<>…pull<<…clip<>…pull<<, free of attachments, all that remained was to move it to the roof’s edge where, after glancing over the edge, a single push on the tangled mess, and the post-storm job was over.
…almost, because the worst still lay ahead, as everything about the ladder screamed uncertainty and danger. Having no other choice, he turned back, facing the only solid spot in his world that wasn’t 16 feet down, stepped out into the air, found a rung with his right foot, committed his weight and the ladder, slid on the wet deck below, moving in the only direction possible, outward, the once solid ladder turning into something that moved, and moving downwards faster than his field of vision could account for, became un-important. As he continued in the falling, a variety of things acquired importance and value, as they came into view, the gutter on the edge of the roof, approached him from below, the thought, “..in the movies‘ filled his mind, temporarily displacing the non-verbal, non-rational, primal thoughts: ‘STOP FALLING” (and) “GRAB SOMETHING”, like the darkness of a romantic evening, washed out by the light of a Sunday morning, the gutter kept moving by, passing from down to up, once out of sight, losing all significance.
Hitting the wooden deck below, his first feeling was relief, that there was something underneath him that remained in place, there followed then, the cautious checking of what he was, before the world stopped mattering, moving first arms and then legs and finding everything moving as he would will them, lay back in the rain and waited for his world to re-assemble.
