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 by Denise, constrained by a sentence limit (high and low) of six, there are worse ways to spend the remaining time you have on earth.

Previously…

Prompt word:

FLAT

While granite and carved-oak timbers may have served as the skeleton of the space inhabited by the Six Sentence Café & Bistro, the lighting system was it’s heart; powerful with all the subtle versatility that modern technology, (and an unlimited budget), could provide. It could produce, with the flip of a switch or the draw of a slider, social environments where emotions were corralled and passions might be drawn-and-quartered, all in service of the ambitions of the five Proprietors.

Even as Rosetta Storme and the Sophomore walked into the main area of the Café, their backs to the bar and it’s kaleidoscopic rows of liquor bottles, aurora hue’d robes seemed to drop from their shoulders as they drew near their destination: a single table occupied by the owner of the Bottom of the Sea Strip Club and Lounge.

Hidden in the ceiling over this table were any number of light sources sharing the universal ambition of purity; the man, bathed in light was, as one would expect, clearly visible on those surfaces closest to the source; what stood out was how this illumination faded to black on the rest of the man; an observer would be forgiven for thinking, ‘If God had this lighting arrangement in his Garden and had not yet committed to the whole ‘Don’t eat the Apple’ character test, things might have turned out very differently for the human race.

Availing themselves of the approaching diversion, the Proprietors sought and secured the affinity of color and shade and tint that the very, very expensive lighting and illumination system supplied: the Bartender stood in silence, yellow and chartreuse waves broaching and receding, while to her left, the Gatekeeper held a carnelian glow with the fierceness of the One Ring, moving away from both, the Raconteuse shed lilac petals as she passed a row of champagne glasses and, at the far end of the bar, Mimi reflected a deep blue that almost touched the flat black fabric of the tall, thin man’s Savoy Row custom-tailored suit.

“Cara mia, come sit and bring your friend, we have much to discuss,” Lou Caesare’s crocodile laugh carried a new sibilance, one that sawed into it’s normal joviality; it did not go unnoticed by the Proprietors.

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 by Denise, constrained by a sentence limit (high and low) of six, there are worse ways to spend the remaining time you have on earth.

Prompt word:

FLAT

It was not the best of times, but then is there a good time to lose the air in a car tire?

No, but there is an endless continuum of contexts in which such a motor vehicle-specific mishap can manifest, i.e. Time of: day/year/life-stages or Place: defined in terms of geograph-/ic/ologic/y; the one unavoidable fact of life is that it’s got to be somewhere and sometime.

The case we are using here to fulfill a social contract this evening involves a young man and a young woman and, as already established, the time and the place of the automotive deflation is the heart (soon-to-be-broken) and the soul (youth is envied by the old, courtesy in most cases of a selective memory) of our tale. While it is actuarially correct to assign the descriptor ‘young’ to both of the parties involved, it is a given that in many cultures the half-life of ‘young’ can be tragically different between men and women.

And so, because Mankind has been gifted by a deity otherwise distracted by His efforts to prove the worth of his creation, most humans are capable of creating reality in an endless variety and scale. From a grandiose tale of a galaxy far, far away to a little memory nugget about a young man and a woman in a car with a flat tire this gift comes with a price arguably greater than the fruit-centered one as the couple in the car on a dark country road are consumed by the fact that not every story has a happy ending.

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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 by Denise, constrained by a sentence limit (high and low) of six, there are worse ways to spend the remaining time you have on earth.

Previously…

Prompt word:

GESTURE

“Damn, we’re almost there…” as a sudden crease between Rosetta’s eyebrows began to growl, the Sophomore made a note to not forget this particular tell, even as she continued, “Now promise me you won’t do anything to make matters worse.”

“What do you mean… like I shouldn’t start making out with you when your gangster uncle starts lecturing you on, on Lilith knows what?“

“Wait, what did you just say?”

‘uh oh… Danger, Will Robinson, Danger‘, the young man began to fidget, his opinion of the girl next to him rising in sync with his fear of being called-out for his old-cultural reference to TV shows of the ’60s and hastily replied, “Meant no disrespect, honest!”

“No, the thing about Lilith, how do you know about her?”

“Come on, everyone knows about Adam’s first wife; we may not have had the internet back in the early seventies, but there were libraries and bookstores and people to talk to and the thing about those days is that when you set out to learn new stuff you almost always had a sense of the quality and character of your sources, ya know?”

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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 by Denise, constrained by a sentence limit (high and low) of six, there are worse ways to spend the remaining time you have on earth.

Previously…

Prompt word:

GESTURE

The Six Sentence Café & Bistro is located on the ground floor of a long-abandoned mill that missed the high-ceiling’d/exposed beam condo conversion fad, by this much; the building’s walls are granite and the neighborhood, a neglected monument to functional obsolescence. A sufficiently desperate (or inspired) person can find the SSC&B on the left side of a lane that has splintered from a secondary street, itself birthed by an orphaned avenue still longing for the pulse of life of the progenitor boulevard in a mid-sized city.

The Six Sentence Café & Bistro, sometimes likened to, ‘a reality-withdrawal patch for those hoping to take the edge off terminal disillusionment with the pimp-promise of capitalism’, is found where(ever) it is needed.

Shaking hands with the tall, thin man, the owner of the Bottom of the Sea Strip Club and Lounge nodded to the Bartender and Chris and continued along the bar that ran down the right side of the club. Stopping at the far end where a woman sat alone, replete in understated Christian Louboutin sneakers and Vera Wang smock, Lou Caesare put both hands on the seat-back of a barstool three-removed, as a gesture of respect.

“My offer stands, mémère, come to my city; Diane’s been on my back about up-classing our clientele, maybe even a whole new venue; this may be New England, but I know if I give you the setup to offer genuine Cajun cuisine, the local goombahs will totally be lined up around the block.”