Writing Prompt: He stared off into space.

Day three, good sleep. Squee! Shhhh, don’t anger the sleep gods.

Good morning it looks as though we have made it to Thursday. It is cold, it is rainy but i am ready to jump into the morning, starting with the writing prompt. I forgot my socks this morning, but I managed to find a pair of socks thick enough that they make my feel look like cartoon feet. They are gray and fuzzy but otherwise my feet look kind of like Smurf feet. There are worse things. So ready for the morning prompt? Great, then let’s get started.

Okay I like Earnestine. She is practically begging for her own story. I can see her fully formed in my brain. I don’t really care for anything else but oh, mark my words, Earnestine will be someone’s nemesis in the near future. Or perhaps an anti-hero. I’ll have to decide when I find her story. But I do like her. The rest, meh.

Thursday, January 27th: He stared off into space.

He stared off into space.  His latest solution was another failure.  There had to be an answer.  He knew it. Harold had been trying to reverse engineer the serum for months now.  He had most of the main components.  He managed to get the bulk of them identified in less than a week.  It led him to believe that success would arrive quickly.

It hadn’t. 

He shifted slightly and looked at the mess of broken glass and spilled chemicals that littered his worktop.  ‘I think my failures are getting worse,’ he thought looking at the mess.  ‘I only broke two test tubes last time, this time I blew up three and took out the burner as well.’ 

As he studied his mess and wondered if he was actually getting anywhere he heard the door behind him open.  He glanced over. 

Ernestine.

‘it would be,’ he thought resigned.  Still he straightened up slightly and favored the vice president with a patently false cheery smile.  He called it his number 11 special.  It was for non-scientifically minded people he was beholden to for his job.  After it was noted that his habitual expression resembled more of a scowl, he developed expressions for every occasion from donor receptions to panel presentations.  They mostly required a variation of the intensity of his enthusiasm.  Or at least the enthusiasm he was supposed to reflect. 

“You know, I think I prefer the scowling,” Ernestine told him.  Harold dropped the smile and resumed his habitual expression as Ernestine surveyed the mess.  As always, Harold wondered what he was supposed to call her.  He knew she probably had a surname listed in her employee file.  He suspected she even had a title like doctor to go with it. But no one ever used either.  Most never addressed her directly and simply held silent until they needed to answer a question.  They knew she was Earnestine because the company owner used her name when talking with her. 

No one else dared. 

Harold had the suspicion she enjoyed their confusion more than she enjoyed the mystery. 

“I suspect that the outcome was not a success?” she said looking over his ruined work station.

Harold shook his head.  “There are two elements that I just couldn’t identify,” he said.  “I’ve checked the database but they keep kicking back as unknown.”  He glanced at the computer and narrowed his eyes slightly in recrimination for its failure.

When he looked back at Ernestine she was staring at him, a twitch of amusement flashing on her lips.  She was holding out a small glass vial.  “We think this might be one of the missing components.”

Harold stood up, nearly knocking his stool over in his haste. He reached out for the vial.  “How…”

“Do you really want to know?” she asked. She sounded as though she’d be willing to tell him.  Harold shook his head instantly.  He really didn’t want to know.