February 12, 2016
I lie **** on top of my blankets; praying. Praying. Praying. I am fighting waves of nausea and sleepiness. Medicines I feel sprinting through my veins dragging me downward. No.
The rain slow at first but gathering wrath in the warm night.
Lightning and thunder will come I smell it afar off. Ions heavily scented spill through the atmosphere holes in my plexiglassed window.
Thunder rolls through my chest shaking deeply my whitewashed plaster cocoon. The cries begin to swell, and echo strangely through the sterile corridors. I am not the only light sleeper, I muse.
I doze momentarily even among the screams of the mentally hilarious; I am called into sleep. They must have doubled the sleeping medication; the storm will be worse than I thought.
I start at a sound. Steady. A theta wave vibrating through my room. I pitch to my side in time to see a lightning bolt slash through the sky. I saw something. The bolt plays hell with my night-vision as I sit upright on my bed.
There. Struggling up the plastic surface of the viewport. It cannot fly in the rain; it struggles for purchase on the portal. I study her. Elegant and slender she reaches the airhole and pulls herself through. Far off the screams wax and wane as the storm intensifies.
Her slender thorax and polished, obsidian, exoskeleton strike excitement through me to a cell. A perfect engine of pain and terror. A great black wasp. She reminds me of a thorn as she rests on the windowsill; unmoving in the air conditioning. Giddily, I shake with excitement nearly overwhelmed. Delicately she cleans water droplets from her abdomen and shakes the moisture from the thin membrane of her wings. I slowly move to my shelf and remove the specimen cup from its placement; silently unscrewing the threaded lid from the clear plastic container. Down the hallway a tired groan and a throaty grunt from one of the other patients. The wind now screams through the breezeport that runs to north toward the cafeteria. A shingle is peeled from the roof of a gazebo and cyclones into a bulkhead. I lick my lips, and consciously check my excitement.
I slide a sheet of crisp white paper from my desk. Quickly, I trap the great insect with the jar and slide the paper over the aperture trapping her between jar and paper. She does not struggle, but looks intelligently at the walls of her new prison. Beautiful, and intricate machinery at work; she readjusts her wings, observing me with with bulbous eyes. Lightning strikes, and there is a deafening pop as a transformer explodes. For a moment it creates an azure sun outside, and casts curious shadows through my room. In the corridor the lamp light is squelched, and then ignites emergency lamps in scarlet hues as the diesel generator sputters to life and idles. A deafening clackson alarm begins to wail.
I am not aware of this at first; obsessing over my catch. Her form is ******, deadly. Something deep within me stirs at the very site of her. Revulsion? Ecstasy? From my reverie I am stirred by the clanging of doors and staccato laughter in the crimson glow of the storm lights. In a moment I am resolved and I slide the paper from the opening and cover it with my hand. Now footsteps. She senses me and reels in instinct. Without hesitation she draws herself tight as a bow string, poised to ****** the hypodermic stinger into the warm pink flesh of my palm. Quicker than thought she strikes piercing, seemingly to the bone she injects poison. Down the ward doors are slid open and the sound of radio chatter plays toward me. I am engrossed, in bliss as my arm begins to numb. Five times then Nine times she spears me with the barb. My heart beating so hard in my chest that I am sure the orderlies must hear it. Then I hear a burst of static and a sing-song reply of phonetic alphabet followed by my room number. I grasp her delicately from the specimen cup with my thumb and forefinger as she stings me with prejudice beneath the nail bed and cuticles. I cast her through the air hole in my window and quickly lie upon my bed before the door is unlocked. A man in white scrubs and a five o'clock shadow opens my door and pierces me with two steel blue eyes. "You should be asleep." "Get some rest, we will have the lights back on in no time." I smile my head swimming with post adrenal bliss. When suddenly I hear the droning of wings. A sea of raging hornets sounding ominously in the small cell. A black cloud pours through the airhole, countless chittering wings encompass the orderly in a poisonous storm cloud. With vengeance they sting, his eyeballs his hands, his throat. All swelling with purple nebulas of poison. In his mouth they crawl and down his throat. Efficiently suffocating him in mere moments. Then they quiet. All at once they flock to me, walking on my pale naked flesh caressing me with millions of antennae. They do not sting, instead they are still. Their crescent shaped bodies vibrating, like a cat purr against my cold skin. I put my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing hilariously, and I shudder hardly containing the joy. Then I pick up the radio clipped to the orderlies pants, and pull the 18 inch telescoping steel baton from the holster belted at his waist. I click the PTT and speak into the radio. Epsilon Wing Cell 005 Accounted for, Over Quintar beep followed by a burst of static and a reply. I cover my mouth to suppress another fit of hysterical laugh. I step barefoot over his body and onto the cold tile of the ward; spinning the heavy keyring on my finger