Greetings fellow Steemians! Here is my sixth 5 minute freewrite. The prompt is "solitude".

This piece is a continuation of yesterday's freewrite, and the third installment in an ongoing story. Let's see how long I can keep this up, using the prompts provided!

Part I: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/freewrite-129-fingernail

Part II: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-ii-freewrite-130-wasps

Finally, I have a confession: The first couple of paragraphs of this installment took five minutes. After that... I just kept writing. I hadn't got to the "solitude" part, but it was coming, so I wrote until I got there. So taken as a whole, this is more like the 45 minute freewrite ;)

Freewriting is a daily practice for most poets and fiction writers, designed to loosen up and get things flowing, like stretching before exercise. Visual artists, especially those who draw or paint from life (figures, landscapes, still lives, etc) do something similar in "gesture drawings". After reading several of @poetrybyjeremy's freewrite posts, I got excited to try these again. Many thanks to @mariannewest for hosting this daily freewrite! https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-131-5-minute-freewrite-tuesday-prompt-solitude

https://pixabay.com/en/medium-psychic-female-fantasy-woman-goth-1726601/

The Strangeling (Part III)

I got up and walked out of the room, without a word. The handler never stood on ceremony, and took exception to it when others did, so I knew it would be useless to try to stall, even with a goodbye.

I forced myself to walk with long, easy strides, concentrating on the task at hand rather than on what would come after. The idea was to convince myself that I was capable and confident enough to handle anything that might be thrown at me. To convince myself that the last eight years had never happened, that my once boundless confidence in my own abilities had never been broken. To offer myself the illusion of control.

The hallways were cheerless, even more so at this time of day, when they were pretty much empty. Somehow the place managed to seem at once sterile and hopelessly grubby. Not that I minded: to me it was a second home, maybe even a first home, since I rarely visited my little studio apartment these days. A person can get used to anything.

I turned right into another hallway, then right again through an open door. Several people in lab coats were standing beside the entrance, talking. The receptionist was shuffling papers on her desk and didn't look up when I coughed, politely, to get her attention.

"Janet" I said.

"Hey Caspian, be right with you", came the familiar response. Janet was an overachiever, which I would normally have considered to be a good quality. But it wasn't necessarily good, or at least healthy, to be a type A personality in a place like this. You ran the risk of getting promoted, and believe me, Janet didn't want that. Or at least, I didn't want that for her. She was pretty, but that wasn't it. There was just something about her that made me feel protective. Which meant I couldn't allow myself to get anywhere near her.

Janet finished whatever she was doing and looked up, giving me a competent, confident, and genuinely kind smile. Her eyes flashed me a look that said she would have liked to flirt with me, had I not repeatedly proven to be such a cold fish. A lot of information to pack into a single look, but like I said, she was an overacheiver. "What can I do for you today?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

I handed her the card. "gotcha" she said. She turned and fed the card into a slot, then turned back to me. "It'll just be a few minutes".

I nodded and walked toward the waiting area. "Mr. Blake" she called after me. I turned slowly to look back at her. "It's ok to take things seriously once in a while", she grinned.

"You're one to talk" I replied, allowing myself a bland half smile.

She winked at me, an actual bona fide wink. I turned and walked the rest of the way to a chair and sat. A woman like that could dial it back, but you couldn't expect her to make it disappear completely.

I had been sitting less than 3 seconds when the hospital style double doors opened and 3 wasps walked out. One was a striking young woman with brown hair and skin and green eyes, one a diminutive and slightly pudgy middle aged man with curly, light colored hair, and one a very pale skinned, dark haired boy. They walked up to me and stood.

"Hello", I said.

"Hello", they replied.

"My name is Caspian, nice to meet you."

They accepted this without responding, of course. Wasps don't have names.

"Before we start, there are a couple of things we need to get straight". I looked into each of their eyes in turn. They were strangely beautiful, just like human eyes, but with a slight purplish opalescent sheen right at the surface, like oil on water, the nuance so delicate that it wasn't noticeable unless you stood within a few feet of them, as I was. Each of them nodded.

"One: don't get close unless I give the signal. The strangeling must not be alerted to your presence. If I decide you need to break cover, which I won't, I'll pulse". I put a finger to the implant in my neck, and they all nodded again.

"Two: under no circumstances must you sting the strangeling. Even if you break cover, even if we're all in danger, better we all die than for you to sting her. A sting would open a link to her, which means she would be able to reach in and incinerate all of you, the entire hive. So no stinging. Period. Got that?"

They all nodded again, their faces serious. God they were every bit as creepy as I remembered.

"A nod isn't good enough on this one. I need confirmation."

"Understood" they all said, in unison. Each spoke in its own idiosyncratic voice. The woman's was warm and musical and a little scratchy, like she was just getting over a cold. The man's was a polite, resonant murmur. The boy's was a thin, sweet, childish warble. Each of these would have been endearing had it not been that they all used the exact same tone in speaking, as if they were mimicking each other ahead of the fact. It was unnerving.

"One last thing", I told them. "I'll need your full focus. I can't have you distracted by whatever the rest of the hive is doing."

"The membrane has been drawn" they said, all together, in the exact same, mildly reproachful tone, their faces wearing the exact same slightly pained expression. It wasn't that they didn't have feelings, they just didn't have any feelings of their own. It must be so strange: no privacy, no solitude. Then again, maybe it was better than feeling as alone as I felt at the moment. At least they had each other.

©2018 Bennett Italia