Hunter (#Weekend #Freewrite, three prompt option)

This is my contribution to the three prompt option of #Weekend #Freewrite hosted by @mariannewest - if you're new to it, you might want to check out the original post, to see what's it all about. Go for it, participate, it's tons of fun!

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Hunter

I had this system for getting exactly what I wanted out of people. I would smother them if they liked it, yell at them when they needed it, make a compliment here, utter a sigh of condescension there. People were so predictable. The little lady in the green skirt, she was the first one I had tried out. She was my patient zero, if you will, guinea pig number one, whatever you like to call her. I called her green skirt. I'm not really good with nicknames. They make no sense. They are a waste of words, of time, of thought. She had entered the pharmacy while I was waiting for someone. Frankly, I don't even know anymore who I was waiting for. Might have been my wife, my husband, maybe a parent, anyway. Doesn't matter.
Green skirt entered, looked around. I could see it in her face. She was someone who wanted to be told what to do. She didn't have her own opinion, her own anything. She would just do whatever I would tell her to do. So, what I wanted that moment was to make her go away. I approached her, while she was still looking around as if she was searching something or someone, but, hey, who would wait for someone like green skirt? Excuse me, I said, because I wanted to be polite, still learning, still sticking to social conventions, I don't know. She looked at me expectantly, as if I was the one she had been looking for. Excuse me (...green skirt...), I think you're in the wrong place. Shouldn't you be out in the cold, caring for homeless people? Or somewhere else? She didn't say a word, didn't even blink. She no longer looked as if I was the one she had been looking for. She left. And I had just started.

He was skating on thin ice - that's all I can see. I hadn't even heard what he was saying during the last minutes. My ears were plugged with headphones, loud music playing, hammering, banging on my brain from left and right. He had just been sitting across the aisle on another able, gesticulating wildly, with such a stupid expression on his face. The elderly couple next two him - that had been the only free spot for two people when the had entered, and they seemed to have accepted happily not to have to sit alone at a table but to have a human prompt for their conversation. Or any conversation at all. But now it was him who was doing all the talking, opening his mouth like some kind of fish, open, close, open close. So stupid. He was someone who was happy if anybody just paid some attention. I could yell at him, I could charm him, no matter, he would just melt in my hands. Fall through the ice into the cold lake, the freezing water. I wasn't sure how and when exactly I would approach him, but I was positive that I would do so. That he was the next one.

It all fell apart the day Sheila brought Hilary to my office. Hilary was short, thin, I almost feared she might get sucked in by the ventilators in the ceiling. I had no clue who Hilary was. I couldn't read her. She seemed nice, friendly, open minded, open hearted. The kind of person I hadn't met too often. And if I had, I had figured out their weaknesses quite quickly. How I could make them do what I wanted. Tell me something they had never before told anybody, do something they wouldn't want to do. I couldn't do that with Hilary. After a few minutes I had thought she liked to be wooed, to be complimented. Then she didn't react at all when I did so. I switched to telling her rather brusquely that I didn't have time to talk to her now, I had meetings and stuff. Hilary nodded and didn't make a move to leave, instead she sat down on the small chair that was standing next to the door. Until I left my own office.