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 by Denise, governed by the Lord High Sextuplet (aka ‘the God of as many arms as fingers…sorta’)

OK. You’re surely used to how we do some sort of intro here, before you get to the Six below. Can’t help you on this one. The most charitable I can be, in terms of ‘what-the-hell?’, that seems to seep from this story, and, to no small degree inspires a sense of gratitude at being limited to six sentences, we’ll say, ‘Hey, It’s no secret that half of why we participate in this ‘hop is to learn to write better.’

Prompt word:

SCALE

“Are you sure?”

Kathryn Holmes smoothed-down the edge on the personal pronoun and, as added insurance, remembering the three-week wait for the plumbers now standing in the basement of her new vacation home, threw in a touch of eyebrow furrow; a successful career on Wall Street equipped her with interpersonal skills if not an over-abundance of patience.

“oh, ayuh. You got the scale on your heater coils,” Ralph (of Ralph & Son Plumbing & Heating) looked down at the mostly-disassembled hot water heater, glanced around the 60 watt bulb-lit utility room and let his gaze glide down, like a red-shouldered hawk spotting an inattentive rainbow trout, to the woman between him and his nearly-worthless son, Ike.

“Can you fix it?”

Smiling at the man, so as not to let her annoyance at her husband, Bart, who insisted the kids shouldn’t miss the first day of school and left for the city on the weekend only compounded her increasing unease.

“Don’t got the part in the truck, gotta drive all the hell down to Augusta, by Jesus,” despite years of experience negotiating with finance professionals from multinational corporations, Kathryn felt a certain sense of bewilderment at the smile appearing on Ralph’s three-day-stubbled face, made more somehow disturbing by it being mirrored on his son’s face.

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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 by Denise, it offers a prompt word around which a story is requested. One rule: six sentences; (judicious use of feral semicolons allowed.)

Prompt word:

EXTRACT

“I have a package for a ‘Mister T.T. Man’ from ‘Fourth Wall Victualers and Restaurant Supply,’ who wants to sign for it?”

Dressed in an immediately-recognizable, ultimately forgettable, quasi-military uniform, the deliveryman held a plastic rectangle out to the darkness of the nearly-empty Café; though the GateKeeper and the BarMistress and Chris-of-the-Monitor were there, in the dark, (Chris, in a characteristically fun way, held a grey scarf between herself and her computer’s camera creating invisibility to anyone scanning the Bistro for someone to sign for the package); no one moved except Hunga, who didn’t so much move in the locomotoring-sense, as wag his tail to the rhythm of a dogsong, probably titled “Look! Its not a Threat and it’s not Food, Look, everyone Look!”

With passive admission to being the only one who might sign for the package, the tall, thin man, pushing through his storm a projectile-sighing, took the Mont Blanc from behind his ear and, realizing the signature being asked for was on the Etch-A-Sketch grey surface, returned it the opposite ear; he stared at his right index finger with the resigned acceptance of a kindergarten teacher at the beginning of the first finger-painting class for the twenty-three five-year-olds waiting impatiently to find their Muse in the little pots of primary colors and the brown placemats of construction paper.

“A moment chèr,” the voice came from the end of the bar nearest the Manager’s office and just behind where Hunga played tiddly-winks with the two small dog treats, courtsey of the stranger in the funny clothes and what appeared to be a vanilla wafer; “I believe our wayward chef is working on something of a surprise to celebrate his return from his walk-about.”

“Tom, yo, we have the vanilla extract that you ordered, it’s here, the EXTRACT of vanilla,” restrained laughter from the other Proprietors put the bold in the font of the Manager’s choice of words to indicate the precise character of the food-flavoring.

The tall, thin man was just stepping towards the double swinging doors that offered access to the kitchen behind the bar, when there was a single sound and an asterix’d exclamation; the first described best as: ‘Dit—Dit—Dit‘ the second, something akin to ‘Bloody ‘ell‘.

 

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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 by Denise, it offers a prompt word around which a story of a mere six sentence is requested.

[Editor’s Note: Of late we’ve been challenging ourselfs to write a Six Sentence Story in only six short sentences. Not critical of anyone, (or ourselfs, for that matter); we will surely continue to celebrate the unbridled liberty offered by the use of feral semi-colons. However, we’re liking this new fictional couple, Rue DeNite and Rocco and thought to spend some time with them after their sucessful mission to Miami on behalf of their employer, Lou Ceasare.]

Prompt word:

EXTRACT

“No, really.”

“Swear to God.”

“I grew up in the southern part of the state and was a Double-Hormone Threat: Class Valedictorian and a three-sport letterman in my Senior year, almost got to be Yearbook editor, but had to have a tooth extracted the day of elections.”

Rocco slowed the car from, ‘Stolen-on-a-whim‘ down to ‘Rental-with-a-significant-deductible‘ miles-per-hour and took the exit at a speed that reminded Rue why God invented convertible sports cars.

Pulling herself back into the open car, Kasia smiled from behind a light-brown curtain of wind-coiffed hair, “But ‘Hobbomock‘ High School, dude, even for New England, that’s gotta be a made-up name; that or conqueror’s guilt is finally getting to the minds of the Town Fathers.”

Michael’s laughter, boisterous enough to stimulate the drive-up box at the McDonalds at the traffic light into asking, “What can I get for you?” created a small, moving and self-contained happiness that Rue DeNite had forgotten she’d once taken for granted.

 

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