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. Rule by a limit on sentences to Six.

We rejoin Rue in the present as she and Rocco are finishing lunch.

This week’s prompt word:

CONSOLE

A salt-and-seaweed zephyr, pushed by the passive-aggressive wings of three sea gulls suicide-diving at a half-croissant tripped a memory, catapulting Rue’s mind into the past; fortunately she returned as quickly as she left, but not without evidence of a certain emotional whiplash.

Rue DeNite stared at her companion, searching for signs of assessment or, more concerning, re-assessment; resisting the urge to put her hand to her head, years of practice controlling what the world saw of her, she instead, with a shyness tinged in stale anger, offered a self-deprecating smile, “…a stage and all the…”

“…Men and women merely players,” Rocco completed the line from ‘As You Like It’ and, seeing a growing suspicion in his charge’s eyes, laughed ineffectually and hastily continued, “Sorry, let me redo that, in character: ‘Dey have they’re exits an’ entrences; An one guy will play a lotta parts’.

“I take it your real name isn’t Rocco,” Rue added, alert to any sign of gender-mandated console on what might easily be interpreted as her being at a loss; choosing to ignore a slight flush of self-consciousness, Rocco replied, “About as much as your’s is Rue.”

Glancing at her Longines La Grande Classique, “We’d better get back to the hotel, I believe our host Cyrus assumes he’ll be entertaining me tonight, keep your phone on vibrate, if you don’t mind.”

Pushing her chair back with her right knee, Rue extended her hand, “Kasia”; Rocco, bending at the waist in order to lift his own chair back silently, rose with her, took her hand, “Michael”.

*

*

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 there is a single rule: Six sentences no more/no less

So, what’s this called, a Flashback? a Backstory? Don’t know. Don’t care. Best ‘Previously in our story… ‘ is This Link (and Lou’s line at the end).

Prompt word:

MELANCHOLY

“It’s either that or go to prison.”

The woman stood, as powerless to flee the voice as a butterfly, invisible minuten pin forcing her into spectator-class victim as her lifepath approached a fork unimaginable a mere twenty-four hours earlier.

“In either scenario, the child is staying here on the Vineyard with her father,” the woman, business suit and designer glasses as iconic as the faux-sophisticated interrogator in an old WW II movie, stepped back and leaned, very-out-of-character, against the marble countertop.

Kasia’s fingers clenched impotently as she turned her head to face the voice, the baby in her arms shielded by her body; the architect’s innovative use of LEDs to illuminate the kitchen created a one-time effect of casting a childless-silhouette tilted towards the door, open into the late-Summer night.

With the ironic appreciation that only a god, intent on assuring Himself his new creations would suffer for being such a disappointment, the future Rue DeNite heard the voice of her Abnormal Psych professor, all of week before, say, ‘The Approach/Avoidance conflict is surely the best of Man and the worst of Woman”.

“Just give my client, her father, your ….former fiancé, the child and you can return to your garret and write your, ‘A Millennial’s Guide to Melancholy’ or whatever it is you’re wasting your life on.”

 

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

This is our contribution to the Six Sentence Story bloghop.

Hosted by Denise, guided by the simplest of rules: use the prompt word and tell a story in exactly six sentenae

Here, this week, in this particular Six Sentence Story, we return to an old ‘story-world’, that of Parchman Farm. For reasons unknown, this horrific episode in the never-ending story of man’s inhumanity to man, offers a imagination-conducive canvas. Here are links to a few previous Parchman Farm Sixes:  ‘Release’  ‘Shake’  ‘Polish’

Prompt word:

SECURITY

“Theys been some talk, of late, about security here at the Farm.”

Still seated on Enola, the Appaloosa that, at least in the company of the Warden, Boss Roscoe was fond of saying, ‘reminded him of who he was and who his charges were’; the man who mattered more than god to most of the men of Camp 8, didn’t bother to take off his hat.

The day in the fields of Sunflower County had been typical of June: angry-red sunrise followed by such spiteful heat that the bent-shadows of the convicts seemed to dig into the soil between the rows of cotton as the men dragged their chains across the open fields.

That the camp boss left his hat on meant one of two things but probably both: he was gonna keep it short and someone was going to regret anew the crime that brought them to Parchman Farm.

As any man still talking after five years at the Farm, might whisper, ‘When a lesson was to be made, the words they flowed like Spring flood waters scouring the lowlands’.

The man on horseback, inclined as he was to mostly do, instead of say, preferred to coat words like ‘prisoner’, ‘discipline’ and ‘security’ in honey, choosing to believe that poison can be made to taste sweet; but the men now standing in front of him looked only at the ground, as fealty to whatever god ruled below came quickly to those long enough at ‘the Farm to forget what freedom felt like.