the Wakefield Doctrine

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

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

Hosted each week by Denise, the rules are simple, the stories are always a surprise.

Been a while, thought it would be fun to stop in on the pulpistic-world of Ian Devereaux. (Full Disclosure: well, that plus spending eternity last night in a fever dream. Normal winter cold, fortunately, but the finger paints and boxing gloves felt quite real).

The prompt word:

BLUR

The sound of hundreds of panicky house cats crossing a marble floor somewhere behind me posed an alternative to resolving the equation occupying my mind for an eternity: what is ‘Two plus Two’ using only primary color finger paints, a sewing needle while wearing boxing gloves. With the unalloyed relief of lights coming back on in a storm, I decided to believe I could open my eyes.

Doing so answered two questions and posed three:

1. Awake (no expectations other than I could take off the over-sized boxing gloves)
2. In my office, at my desk

(the night, holding a corner of my mind, insisted I continue in this suddenly, real-as-a-bathroom-sink format of a bulleted list)

1. How long
2. What day
3. Is it going to change over to rain or continue (I knew enough not to pose the obvious follow-up question).

Taking a chance, I pushed off the desk with one hand while extending the opposing foot and now faced the windows behind me. Avoiding entanglement with excessive formatting, I took solace in the fact that, despite the occasional crystal-asterix flicking in the sheets of rainwater, the world beyond the glass was pretty much a non-committal blur.

Seemed about right for a Thursday morning in February.

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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.

Denise is the host and places only one requirement on us: the story is to be exactly six sentences in length.

In the past few weeks we hear more and more about the personal history of one Sybil Trainor. This week is no exception. We are privileged to witness her escape from a childhood in the Midwest to her first year at an Ivy League school. Should be interesting.

The prompt word:

MESS

Consigning the campus security guard to her review mirror, reduced to a mime performance of ‘WTF?!’ Sybil Trainor drove, half-lawn half sidewalk, down one edge of the Radcliffe Quad towards a five-story brick building that would be home for her freshman year. Spotting a fire-lane to the right rear corner of the building, she parked, grabbed the single piece of luggage in the backseat and, leaving car keys swinging from the ignition and the doors unlocked, walked back up the alley to the grassy central Quad.

“Really more of a lozenge than a pentacle, don’t you think?” Sybil directed her critique of the tradition-bound landscaping to a girl just ahead who was doing a passable imitation of one of those improbably-overloaded handcarts in photos of commerce in port cities in southeast Asia, except with battered luggage and a twenty-five-dollar hair cut.

“I’m here to welcome you, the Class of Two Thousand-whatever, to Radcliffe; as your Orientation guy, if you’re familiar with the history of our institution, I’m kinda the coed in the crowd,” several exchange students swapped giggles as the young man, standing above the group at the main entrance to the dormitory, managed to leer and laugh at the same time, “My room is a mess but the door is always open in case you need something I can provide.”

He was less than six feet tall, barefoot with a can of Diet Coke in one hand and a Radio Shack loud-hailer in the other; catching Sybil’s attention, he dropped the bullhorn, threw his soda in a nearby bush as he jumped from the granite porch and, with a sweeping flourish of his Red Sox baseball cap, bowed in front of her, “So, do you believe in love at first sight or love after first fight, don’t answer, I like surprises.”

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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.

Denise is the host and places only one requirement on us: the story is to be exactly six sentences in length.

The prompt word:

MESS

“Clean this mess up else we’ll all end up in jail.”

“What? Did you think we Proprietors don’t enjoy listening to oldies?”

The tall, thin man tipped himself from a half-recline against the main bar in the Six Sentence Café & Bistro and, holding his phone with two hands, finger-tutted the volume down from: ‘You might want to make an appointment with your otologist’ to ‘oh, so you were trying to speak to me’.

The Sophomore stood, right hand on a sun-warped stack of out-of-date copies of ‘The Watchtower’ covering half of the top of the cigarette machine in the vestibule: leaning cautiously into the eternal evening of the Bistro, “No, man, I was just surprised to find myself here, for a second there, hearing Fagan’s voice, wasn’t sure where,” drawing closer to the man at the bar, amended, “when I was, ya know?”

“Too well, young exile, all too well,” the Proprietor, more formally dressed than normal, rotated on the bar stool a non-verbal welcome and invitation to sit, “The coast is clear for the moment, but then I don’t need to tell you, the river of time is available to all and controllable by none.”

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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.

Denise is the host.

Following is the next installment in the (serialized) ‘backstory’ of Sybil Trainor, the newest character from the Six Sentence Café & Bistro oeuvre. (For you Readers what like the sense of story continuity, previously on ‘a Sybil Trainor Six’.)

This week’s prompt word is:

PASTE

“You ain’t from around here, are you,” the bar stool holding Sybil turned a half revolution to her right, the voice was from a man wearing a stained and slightly wrinkled work-shirt with the casual pride of physician’s scrubs; his beard, just the wrong side of comfortable removed all doubt to his intentions or standards for social interaction.

“I’d guess it was either my perfume or the lack of double negatives,” Sybil noted the tightening of eyebrows, a bull disturbed in a quiet pasture; Steve, according to the red embroidery on his shirt, stopped her rotation with his knee, hand on his beer bottle moving to her hip.

The mute negotiations of fox-hole prayers and last call in bars that advertise ‘Ladies drink half-price’ concluded with Sybil standing first, the man’s jawed tightened, forced to react even as the young woman whispered,

“So, Steve, I spotted a motel just outside the Murphysboro city limits that looked like it catered to the impromptu honeymoon trade,” his country-boy smile, more a torch dropped in an abyss than a lighting of a shared candle, now pasted on his face, “But left my car at the commuter parking up at the interstate, so give me the keys to your truck.”

 

 

Standing at the foot of the bed, open blouse more vestment than daywear, Sybil smiled down at the man struggling weakly, arms and legs reduced to twitches of impotent panic; “You remember, back in the day, the mainstream media was beside itself with girls getting slipped a roofie and all sorts of unpleasantness ensuing?”

Steve, motor control limited to widening his eyes like a rabbit to the wolf, a blue flush growing as hypoxia tightened it’s grip,

“Not that it matters, but your next of kin will find the keys to your truck right there in the ignition just as fine as can be, probably help with the funeral expenses; been fun, gotta run, if you see him down there, tell Uncle Fred hi for me.”

After a brief ride from a cautiously amused trucker, Sybil Trainor started her car, tuned in the closest thing to a college radio station and pulled onto Highway 13; her journey towards a new life resuming by way of the path of Great Tri-State tornado; Radcliffe could wait a few extra days as college freshman-to-be continued to back-burn the remnants of childhood.

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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.

Denise is the host.

This week’s prompt word is:

PASTE

The Six Sentence Café & Bistro, its reputation as impeccable as it was unremarkable, has always maintained good-standing as a member in: the National Restaurant Association, the Better Business Bureau and a soupe à l’alphabet of three letter trade, civic and professional organizations. ‘the Café’ as it is known to a small coterie of cognoscenti, insiders and regular customers, bends over backwards to comply with all pertinent authorities. From agencies of the State, local municipalities, down through a panoply of historical societies, genealogical fan clubs and hospitality associations, suffice it to say, for the dedication of the seven Proprietors, no ‘T’ was ever left without its axiomatic arm nor an ‘i’ bereft of its ‘tittle’.

Despite the world entering an era of cut ‘n paste creativity, the institution of the SSC&B has been observed, spotted and surreptitiously studied in an endless variety of locales and adressess, albeit, always an out-of-the-way/ slightly-off-the-beaten-track location, yet it’s defining quality remains the same.

For those who manage to find and enter the Café, the recognition in the other patrons, customers and, even Proprietors, is grounded in kinship. While fairy tales and legends abound with stories of magical domains, the Six Sentence Café & Bistro offers the most everyday and mundane of gifts, the opportunity to identify with others of like-mind and good intent.

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