the Wakefield Doctrine

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

This is the Wakefield Doctrine’s contribution to the Six Sentence Story bloghop.

Hosted each week by Denise, all we’re asked to do is write a story of six (and only six) sentences.

Prompt word:

KICK

“On this we can agree.”

Despite being extremely expensive, the music system unexpectedly flared into pre-LED colored light, heralding the unmistakable plastic-flop of vinyl onto turntable; the 100 proof-silk sound of Curtis Mayfield began to confide raw truth of life for those on the left up-slope of the Bell curve.

“Not to be rude, but what, not counting your fanciful oeuvre hung on being a time traveler, encourages you to presume that?”

The Sophomore’s lips compressed into a non-committal line, even as his eyes skidded across the direct line-of-sight with the other man; the haplessly-optimistic part of his mind ran scratchy newsreels of manly hugs binding self-absorbed veterans returning from battle. Medals and campaign ribbons, official tokens of instant depreciation to be treasured only when alone, the better to survive the emotional kick of a lethal fetus awaiting entrance to a loud, noisy world, barely hinted at the true extent of his wounds.

The tall, thin man stared at the visitor on the far side of his desk when one of six phones skittered to life, a deaf-mute sand-crab demanding attention in a surprisingly arid world; swiping the screen into the cell phone equivalent of a coma, he looked at the Sophomore and rose from his chair.

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

This is the Wakefield Doctrine’s contribution to the Six Sentence Story bloghop.

Hosted each week by Denise, all we’re asked to do is write a story of six (and only six) sentences.

Prompt word:

STOCK

‘From stock room to boardroom,’ the man stood at the window-wall that framed the expanse of blue that was Lake Michigan on an early January morning. The expression on his face was a battlefield of pride and shame, as the phrase, ‘lock, stock and barrel’ pushed all other thought to the side as nurture triumphed over nature.

Having completed his daily invocation, the president of the Omni Corp rested his forehead against the glass in profane genuflection to Mammon and Friedman, his prophet.

Without changing his posture, one in which balance was as much an illusion as the belief in the value of his own will, the man looked down; the city streets, already alive with people and vehicles pulsing and flowing like corpuscles giving life and clearing waste from a living, growing body.

“Mr. Avaritia, the men from the SEC are here,” Anya Clarieaux stood in the doorway, her title was Executive Administrative Assistant but any stock analyst, from the NYSE to the Nikkei and all points in-between would, after a long enough day on the financial ramparts, whisper, like young boys sharing old, dirty jokes, ‘Wither goest Anya’.

“Tell them to wait, I have one last file to secure,” the windows along the northern side of the penthouse offices were not designed to open, save one; ‘If you apply yourself and never admit defeat, you can be so much more than everyone else’ the words of his father as softly corrosive as rust on the undercarriage of an old car.

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

This is the Wakefield Doctrine’s contribution to the Six Sentence Story bloghop.

Hosted each week by Denise, all we’re asked to do is write a story of six (and only six) sentences.

The last time we saw the tall, thin man and the Sophomore… (click here)

(Hey, shoutout to  Rockstar Girl. Her Six this week was a masterful display of the use of anaphora. Far be it from us to resist the temptation, lol. ‘a course, we don’t quite employ this excellent rhetorical device with the simple grace as did she.)

Prompt word:

TASK

For the first time since entering the Manager’s office, the Sophomore’s confidence began to fray, shuddery as the moment after a near-miss between an inattentive driver and a freight train at a crossing so familiar it neglected to blow it’s cursory warning.

For the first time since a searing night with a woman whose name he’d scratched from his conscious memory like the prisoner in solitary confinement marking time with bloody finger nails, the tall, thin man felt vulnerable.

One of the two thought, ‘Maybe I need to give up this time-traveler thing, the security that nothing imagined can cause harm to others, might not be so ironclad’.

One of the two fought to repress the thought, ‘This is bullshit, why get caught up in this; emotion and reason are like… oil and sugar, or some-fricken-thing.”

The task before the two individuals differed only in terms of their respective resolve to draw aside the veil and pay a price that can only be self-inflicted.

“You know what I think…” the Sophomore leaned into his words, the better to surmount the wall he believed was there;

“I think you know better…”, the tall, thin man let his words settle on the surface of the desk that separated the two men.