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, it requires one qualifying characteristic: to be of precisely six sentences in length,

The other half of the conversation? Here

Prompt word:

PARCEL

It’s not true I decided to quit graduate school and start a private investigation agency because of the elevator in an Art Deco office building; at least not entirely.

I smiled at my reflection, expanding into multiple parallelograms as the interior gate closed, each floor mutely shouting a number as the car rose in the shaft.

Picking up a parcel on the floor in front of my office, I passed through the outer office where the green-shaded lamp on my secretary’s desk cast half-hearted shadows on the reception area; at the end of her second day, when I reminded her that I didn’t need a night light after hours, she laughed her best bedroom laugh and said, “I didn’t say it was for you, it’s been my experience that if you find yourself feeling alone, you might want to say a prayer of gratitude.”

I pushed the cardboard-and-Tyvek package onto the top of my desk, a room-temperature icebreaker plowing through the off-white manila folders, cresting right to the edge of the scarred oak surface; deciding that if I couldn’t be where (and with whom) I would like, then I would be with whom I was paid to, so after swiveling my chair to face the windows looking out on the nighttime city, picked up my phone.

“Hello. Yeah, I’m calling on account of Lou; but if you tell him, I’ll deny it and your Saville Row tailored suit won’t make a difference, at least not one that counts…

Can we talk?”

“It’s just that while he appreciates your accommodation in the matter of Miz Storme, he does tend to be somewhat protective to those close to him, hence my reaching out to you.”

*

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, defined by sentence quantity.

Hey! The other half of the conversation? Here.

Prompt word:

PARCEL

“Do you mind if I take this call?”

The tall, thin man watched Rosette Storme, the non-verbal signals played across her face and body like a Postal Service truck exploding over the Grand Canyon in a shower of cardboard and Tyvek’d parcels; he kept his phone a chaste half-inch from his ear until she nodded a half-smile of submission.

“Yes, Mr. Devereaux, I’ve been expecting your call, and now is, in fact, a very good time to talk.”

The Proprietor raised his eyebrows in a manner at once conciliatory yet demanding, every parent’s protest that what they had to do was harder on them than the child; taking a cigarette from a case that would have stocked the Café’s bar for a month of St. Patrick’s Days, Rosette stared back with the dispassionate  concentration of a neurosurgeon reading an MRI scan next to a sedated patient, head already shaved, insensate yet alive.

“I have neither the desire nor the inclination to make this in any way an adversarial relationship…

…I’d hardly consider my wardrobe to be your greatest concern…

….since you’ve brought it up, I have the greatest respect for Mr. Caesare, while Miz Storme is acceptable to everyone here, there is no reason for Mr. Caesare to have any reason to be concerned with her well-being.”

*

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 requires on qualifying characteristic: to be of precisely six sentences in length,

Prompt word:

SHADOW

“I swear to god, if either of you so much as hints at a metaphor, it’s the last thing you will ever do.”

The man began the process of getting up off the sidewalk; nothing brusque or artless, which would be the style of one his two companions, being the center of the gang, his was the way of attraction not overt coercion.

The intersection of the alley and Fountain Street was as it had been prior to their ill-advised choice of mugger victim, the original obelisk of dark shadow divided at it’s base into a curvilinear delta by the anemic inflow of illumination from a streetlight on the opposite sidewalk.

“Not me,” the second of the trio leaned against the brick wall of a boarded up social services office, almost but not quite out-of-reach of the first, “Where you go, I go, you know that.”

“Where’d he go, I’ll fuckin’ kill ’em,” the third, rising improbably from a pool of ebon fluid, staggered in a rough circle around his two cohorts. enclosing them rather than connecting in any discernable way.

The three tried to laugh, failed and settled for varying renditions of pain and discomfit, bound by their common substance dependency, separated by the degree of suffering and desperation; one of them, probably the first, once,  on a better, more hopeful day, suggested they call themselves, The Solar Eclipse Boys, but then the day’s score kicked in and and stole their artistic ambitions.

*

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 demands one qualifying characteristic: to be of precisely six sentences in length,

…when last we saw the tall, thin man

Prompt word:

BENEFIT

“You may be wondering why I brought you here,” the tall, thin man smiled as he let go of Rosetta’s hand and stood at the one table equidistant from the bar and the small stage halfway down the interior wall of the Six Sentence Café & Bistro.

Pulling out one of the four chairs serrating the round lacquered-wood table, he paused while staring into the semi-mirrored top, an odd moment of 21st Century scrying; lightly touching the back of the young woman’s knees with the chair’s leading edge, he seated her in full view of the Proprietors who, at the present moment, were gathered in the open doorway to the kitchen behind the bar.

“We can see you staring… you know, from here,” with the unselfconsciousness of a healthy preadolescent boy, the Manager continued with a very respectable Pee-wee Herman, “Why doncha’ take a picture, it’ll last longer.”

Rosetta Storme tried, (unsuccessfully), to maintain what she was certain was the demeanor of the sophisticated and slightly dangerous young person, but as with many of her generation, fell short, if for no other reason than even with the unalloyed benefit of a full life rolling out before them, the ‘less-is-more’ inflection tends to be elusive in concept, near impossible in execution.

“So you’re trying to warn me about your little friends, don’t worry mister, I can take care of myself,” the young woman leaned forward over the table, her pupils dilated as the tall, thin man took the visual bait, she was unable to refrain from a smile of premature triumph even as the Proprietor refused to look up in the embarrassed confusion most men exhibited when walking into her trap; despite her confidence, a small coterie of hair follicles were coming to inappropriate attention over her eyes, precursor to a frown of uncertainty.

“You misunderstand me, Miz Storme,” the tall thin man sat back and lit a cigarette, “While this whole ’employment opportunity’ has been a courtesy to your Mr. Caesare, my warning to you is quite sincere: you should be considerate of the others here at the SSC&B not just out of common courtesy, you should be…careful, as the difference between you and the people at the bar, (including Chris behind the display in the Bartender’s phone and the Gatekeeper in the wisp of cigar smoke), is that while you may have power, they are the manifestation of Will.”

*