Even as a child I knew I was different. Parents always seemed to be hurrying their children off in the other direction whenever I came out to play. No playmates. Ugly duckling. Hardly. I looked like everyone else. Not a monster by any means. It seemed apparent that everyone knew something I did not understand. What to a child seems innocent enough can be quite menacing to an adult. I never counted myself as lucky. Isolation always felt like a punishment. Never could I imagine that the thing that set me apart would save my life someday.
My parents could see no other way to tell me the harsh reality of my condition than to demonstrate it to me. I was six years old when my father took a hunting knife to my left arm and sliced in. The blood spilled across the hard wood floor before my eyes as my father held the knife with one hand and held me back with his other.
I can clearly recall him screaming, “STAND STILL! Don’t touch it.” My mother, in tears in the corner of the room behind the rocking chair never, moves. The slit in my arm pumps out more and more red than I can even imagine. It stings my skin, but there’s no sign of it stopping. My father grabs my face and forces me to watch the blood spill out upon the floor onto the metal heater grate.
Before I can let out a gasp, the floor next to my feet slowly begins to darken black and the metal grate disintegrates as though it’s being eaten away by an invisible force. Acid-like. My father drops the knife and grabs a pitcher of water to rinse clean my cut. As he does this, I am further frightened as he shows me the effect on his skin. A small part of his hand is raw and gaping flesh as my own skin is relatively unaffected. The cut shows minimal redness but unlike my father’s wound its no more than irritation.
There are terrifying things in the world for a child to learn about. Understanding that you’re blood is indeed a curse, a punishment; a deadly destructive force is devastating for a child. A cut on the playground could eat through the monkey bars or even worse someone’s face.
Just a drop. His flesh falls back and all that remains is the exposed tissue. He can’t scream. I’ve mixed his wine with my blood and the inside of his mouth should be a gaping cavity with little to no remains of a tongue. Watching his face wretch and contort in torment was incredibly fascinating.
Have I gone mad? Quite the contrary, as this was self defense. Something my parents instructed me as a child, was to trust no one. Somehow this gift sets me apart and there would always be extremists that intensely seek to exploit. I’ve no choice but to defend myself on occasion. Self-defense is not a crime. When your blood can tear a hole in most pieces of metal and melt flesh it becomes a gray area.
Death at my feet. A strange man. He wasn’t like the others. Not a chemist out to make a name in hopes of curing my blood. Different. I can’t recall how he introduced himself. Or for that matter how had even heard of me.
This man was quite elusive, but completely captivating. He had invited me to dinner with an interesting proposal- the notion of introducing my blood as a new type of biological compound. It sounded unbelievably captivating to me, so I accepted at once. The dinner discussion went remarkably well and he’d asked me to drop by his office in the morning to show me his hypothesis. It was quite startling what awaited me at his office.
On the ground his body is vanishing slowly. My scarf is gone. I’m dripping blood over his body. Each droplet is like a small fireball searing flesh as it hits. His eyes are empty and not glassy. I’m not a killer. But to hear his plans for me set the pace.
The hypothesis was sound, except for one thing. It meant my slow demise. Piece by piece he would need to remove my limbs for examination culminating in the removal of my organs. Each removal would be followed by a bloodletting for an accurate analysis of my circulatory system.
“So we are in agreement? You would be helping mankind with your small contribution.” he says.
Continuing to smile, I nod.
“Well, let me get some wine, we can toast the future of this.”
Silently I nod with a slight smirk and I offer to pour the wine. Just a little spill for distraction. A cleaning man is a busy man that notices little including the small slit on my wrist that releases quick venom.
Drop-drop. Drop-drop. Drop.
Without notice he misses my tightly wrapped scarf that briefly hides the wound. Smile. Laugh. Of course, we’re saving the world. Cheers, bottoms up and so forth.
“No matter how much you think you love somebody, you’ll step back when the pool of their blood edges up too close.” Invisible Monsters.
Life & Death. Blood. Venom? It is not. It will not hurt you. It’s hard to talk about blood. People are afraid of blood. They have this phobia. Fear. It might get on them. In them. Like a poison. Spreads disease. It’s dirty. Filthy. A contagion. Well, I’m not most people. To me it is LIFE. Blood represents something most precious. Fear is no way to live. If you can see something all the more reason to embrace it instead of fearing it. Talk about it. There are things in the world that can be changed if we talk about it. There will be a cure. Enjoy. KISSES. m.
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