Six Sentence Story | the Wakefield Doctrine - Part 8 Six Sentence Story | the Wakefield Doctrine - Part 8

Six Sentence Story -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 the only rule is: six sentences in length.

Prompt Word:

PLATFORM

“Damn vehicular peristalsis…’

The sole occupant of the car felt a mental finger depress a well-worn, (so worn that if one could see it, they would observe a cream-colored rounded-corner protrusion, somewhere between the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex), and in the slightly concave surface, a faded-black letter ‘O’,  the man’s ‘Out-loud thinking’ button.

“What did you say?”

The sole passenger’s face had the look of affectionately-patient resignation, the corners of her mouth a true telltale, the time-pressed creases of age rose upwards; her partner’s youthful eccentricities, like some wines, a handful of paintings and all of love, smoothed themselves over time into endearingly creative expressions.

As traffic resumed forward motion, she recalled the conclusion of his last bi-decade physical; his physician made a point of mentioning a certain behavior/syndrome common to a certain stage of life, “The Latin phrase is: ‘Quo profundiores cogitationes sunt, eo majore apud nos loquimur’.

“I think therefore I mutter,” The man, stepping off the ledge-platform that stuck out of the end of the exam table, continued,

“We,” looking at his wife, perched on the only seating that didn’t have stirrups or a covering of white paper, “have an agreement that, when in public she will look at me and nod, like we were in a conversation and I will refrain from swearing excessively.”

 

 

 

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Six Sentence Story -the Wakefield Doctrine- [an Ian Devereaux Six]

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 the only rule is: six sentences in length.

Prompt Word:

WIRE

“Really? You’re sorry and this is all a misunderstanding, that’s what you’re going with?”

“Can you fuckin’ believe this guy?” The owner of the Bottom of the Sea Strip Club and Lounge looked around, three of the four men showed no inclination to regard their boss’s interrogative as anything but rhetorical, however, the fourth, clearly most junior of them, offered a shocked ‘What the hell!’; his older, more seasoned companions repressed their reaction to the young man’s misguided ambition, favored uncles smiling at the enthusiastic if not off-key performance at a grade school talent show.

Being the owner of most of the warehouses in the once-thriving industrial park, Lou Caesare found the small, elevated office marked, ‘Shipping and Receiving’ was ideal for private, secure meetings; the subject of his attention at the moment, a second-tier accountant for an import company primarily serving a speciality market based in several South American countries, struggling against the painful embrace of several rolls of duct tape.

Raising an eyebrow, a salt-and-pepper hedgerow he reserved for only the rarest occasions of non-verbal communications, when a rabbit punch to the kidneys or, at the moment, a Skil saw umbilical’d to a wall socket, was insufficient to convey his frustration and slightest touch of pique;

“Tell me who put you up to wearing a wire or you’ll hear my aunt Rosa, may she rest in peace, who used to say, ‘I swear, Louis, you’d forget your head if it wasn’t tied on.'”

 

 

 

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Six Sentence Story -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 there is but one rule: our stories, (inspired by the week’s prompt word), must be exactly (and only) six sentences in length.

Prompt word:

CONE

The attic apartment, in the mill district of a small city, was one of six in a building clad in asbestos shingles, the preferred building material at a time when worker health in exchange for durability was the sign of good business sense; the grad-student enjoyed his cluttered vocabulary when describing his new home to the handful of friends he claimed, usually rolling out Shakespeare-on-the-cheap by calling it his urban ayerie.

One particular Thursday morning in July things changed; deciding to take a professional day, (his current part-time occupation being: ‘Find a job until it’s time to become a real person’) to his credit, he took his job as seriously as a Tahitian adolescent sitting before a black flannel missionary telling him the path to salvation was intentionally uncomfortable.

The first hint of a good day was the wood-on-wood clap of the exterior door three flights down; moving through the three room apartment to check for hygiene boobytraps, he debated where to wait for his visitor; the living room was unfurnished, the bedroom screamed of a confidence he could only dream of… and settled for the kitchen, which made sense, as it had the only door out of the firetrap he called home.

The knock on the peeling-painted door, with characteristic impatience, pushed it open ushering in a greeting with the kind of teeth that provided the special effects to many a bachelor dream,

“Jesus Christ, it’s gotta be a hundred degrees in here, good thing I stopped to buy you breakfast.”

The grad school student watched as a young woman, wearing shorts and a wife-beater (a Maxfield Parrish silk-screened on what little remained of the front), a gift he’d bought her on a dare (to himself) after their first date, stepped into the room holding a single ice cream cone.

He didn’t stand a chance.

 

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Six Sentence Story -the Wakefield Doctrine- [a Café Six]

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 there is but one rule: our stories, (inspired by the week’s prompt word), must be exactly (and only) six sentences in length.

Prompt word:

CONE

“What do you call the frozen dairy-product desert originally created by an unknown zen monk in a monastery during the Tang Dynasty?”

The tall, thin man, walking out of the perpetually semi-dark corridor that led to the Manager’s office, stopped next to Mimi, posing the question without preamble or the slightest hint of a set-up.

The Bartender, backing through the double-swinging doors from the kitchen behind the bar, turned and placed a platter holding four stemmed crystal vases of sundaes.

In an alcove marked ‘Reserved for the Raconteuse‘  halfway along the street-side wall, opposite the small stage, a laptop computer awoke, casting a friendly blue light towards the Proprietors and Tom, who, folding his apron, stood next to the cash register.

An orphaned cell phone, on the bar end nearest the entrance to the Six Sentence Café & Bistro began to jitter on the polished-wood, a late-stage alcoholic flamenco dancer after a three-day bender; on it’s screen, a text message from the Gatekeeper: “Don’t even think about saying it.”

“An Ice Cream Koan,” the tall, thin man, like an itinerate priest offering a blessing to a congregation, smiled to himself.

*

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Six Sentence Story -the Wakefield Doctrine- [a Café Six]

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 there is but one rule: the story (inspired by the week’s prompt word) must be six sentences in length.

So, last week Mimi wrote this excellent Café Six. We were, at the time, way behind on (our) reading and did not feel we could do justice to a walk-on Six*. So here we are, a week later.

Prompt word:

HERMIT

“Hey, I was thinking…” the tall, thin man stopped both his forward physical motion and, with it, his prepared speech denying that the amount of time alone in the Manager’s Office made him a de facto, hermit; the tableau that threw a big Cease and Desist on his entrance was comprised of Hūnga wagging his tail at Nick who, standing next to Mimi, reflected the dog’s unconditional love like a Maybelline saleswoman trapped in a traveling carnival’s house of mirrors; something in the scene in front of the bar of the Six Sentence Café & Bistro triggered a long-repressed memory (genuine or false) of a novitiate nun telling a handful of sixth graders in detention a fairly subversive version of the Story of Genesis.

The First Woman was nearly out of the Garden when she spotted an unfamiliar four-legged creature crouching under a bush with an expression of serene patience in his eyes; over her left shoulder, in the opposite direction, a tangle of conversation, “You’re better off with her…” and “I know, but why’d You have to create her like that, You said I’d have dominion over everything,” followed by a harumph of frustration trigging additional, non-specific vocalizations that, much later in the development of culture and language would be synonymous with ‘Wounded Pride’ and Whiny little boy’.

Stopping, Lilith spoke to the animal that looked up at her from his place along the Path,”I can’t stay too long, those two jamokes are likely to notice that my leaving the Garden makes it a two man club and that won’t end well… the Gate to the East is just up ahead, I’d be happy for the company if you want to walk with me;” the creature shook itself from nose to tail, rose with a muscular grace and, after pacing her for a few steps, began to bound ahead, running in wide arcs around her, clearly for the simple joy of motion.

Finally, where the tall grass ended and a dark passage began, the animal stood, waiting for the Woman to catch up; pink tongue hanging out in it’s version of laughter, while on the other end of his body, a tail swept back-and-forth in the grass in a crystal clear, albeit, non-verbal celebration; Adam’s first wife crouched down, and looking into eyes that whispered of the Divine said, “As much as I’d love to have your company, would you help… not me, but those who will follow,” ears folded back patiently, the animal waited.

“I know He’ll never give up on His experiment, but you are what Mankind could be, rather than what we think we should be; so let’s play a joke on our Creator; seeing how my former Husband did not officially name you, I shall, while ‘God’ is already taken, by the Power vested in me, you shall be known as… Dog!”

The dog turned and sat on its haunches facing back along the Garden Path and waited for the first conscripts of a doomed army of Men and Women marching towards a battlefield they could not imagine; wagging his tail as farewell to Lilith, the first Dog waited with neither reservation nor regret for it’s chance to lead a new race back home.

 

* a walk-on in the context of Six Sentence Story(s) is when a character (from another writer/another story-reality) takes part in a scene. In this case, fairly closely related, the Six Sentence Café & Bistro being a familiar metaphorical world and the character, Mimi, the Gatekeeper and the tall, thin man are regulars in that particular virtual world.

 

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