The Strangeling Part XI - (Freewrite 139 - artichoke)

Greetings fellow Steemians! Here is my 12th "5" minute* freewrite. The prompt is "witches".

*Not 5 minute this time, 45 minute ;)

This piece is a continuation of yesterday's freewrite, and the twelfth 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

Part III: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-iii-freewrite-131-solitude

Part IV: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-iv-freewrite-132-gardening

Part V: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-v-freewrite-132-the-attic

Part VI: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-vi-freewrite-132-plaid

Part VII: https://steemit.com/weekendfreewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-vii-weekend-freewrite-3-3-2018

Part VIII: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-viii-weekend-freewrite-3-3-2018-apricot

Part IX: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-ix-freewrite-137-witches

Part X: https://steemit.com/freewrite/@bennettitalia/the-strangeling-part-x-freewrite-138-syrup

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-139-5-minute-freewrite-wednesday-prompt-artichoke

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

She looked so beautiful. All I wanted was to kiss her. But what felt like a lifetime of exhaustion was catching up to me, tackling me, wrapping me in its sweet, numbing embrace, taking me down... I gave my head a quick shake, trying to clear it. This was ridiculous, I told myself, impossible. Exhaustion didn't catch up to me, physical needs never took me down. I had been designed, modded, and trained to do better than that. Every time, without fail. Without even a question of failure.

I was aware that giving in to exhaustion, to the relaxation of sleep, was theoretically a basic human experience, but it had become alien to me. To feel my desire to act subsumed in and defeated by this hunger for oblivion was strange, frightening. My head felt heavy, my eyes refused to stay open. I fought it. I caught myself thinking it was only because I wanted to hold her, talk... But as I blacked out, I heard somebody shouting, as if from a distance, in my voice: something about danger, wasps in the attic....

"Shhhh...." she whispered, "it's ok". And then...

I was young, slight, maybe 8 or 9 years old, staring at the pattern made by the leaves of an artichoke on my dinner plate. My mother was putting on earrings, dressed for a party. My dad said something to her about being late. She kissed me on the top of the head and told me that there was dessert in the fridge, and no internet until I'd finished my homework. And I knew... I knew they weren't coming back. I stared at the artichoke. They were actually flowers, I had read somewhere. This artichoke was the bud of what would have been a giant prehistoric looking, fleshy flower. Cut before it had a chance to bloom, and cooked for me to eat. My parents were leaving. A tear splashed onto my plate.

This wasn't me.

The desert. The desert where I'd first learned to keep my guard up, that it wasn't safe to relax. A ruined city. There was a little girl, maybe 5 years old, crying in the back of a building, alone. I tried to talk to her, tried to calm her down.

We had just slaughtered her entire family.

Back at base, our superior officer was commending us for devotion to duty, reminding us in no uncertain terms of why we were there. He was wearing a dark suit. Strange uniform... shoulda been camo. Sunglasses. That part was right. I asked him for a drink of water as he walked away. He took off the glasses and turned to answer me. No eyes in his face, just smooth skin over empty sockets. I was used to that. He smiled, a smile I had seen too many times, too close up, like being exposed to a toxin that accumulates in your tissues and makes you sicker every day. He raised one of any number of hands to his lips, made a zipping motion across them. "All in good time my little rescue kitten" he leered. My stomach lurched.

This wasn't me either...

©2018 Bennett Italia