Here's my drabble for this week's blood challenge. I was inspired to write it after I read ita's drabble.
"You‘ve got two tries."
"We‘ll see what we can do," the man responds.
"Are you a phlebotomist?" The mother gives her five-year old a stern look in response to this question but remembers the bruises and says nothing.
"Yes." The man tries to smile.
"Good. Doctors always mess this up. You have two tries, then I’m leaving," this time more sternly.
A few minutes later the girl is smiling brightly with a bandage on her arm and a green lollipop in her mouth. "Thanks. You did a good job," she tells the man, who looks very relieved to be leaving.
She licked his neck, long and deliberate strokes. Raising one hand, she pinned his head away from her, digging her palm into his damaged face.
She bit - not to suck, but to tear. A stroke downward, slicing across the jugular, and then across to either side laying the neck open, flaying flesh from bone and tendon, ripping veins and arteries alike.
Sluggish second-hand blood pooled in the waste of his neck. She kneed him once in the gut, driving through soft flesh and cracking bone, and dipped to drink again.
That would teach him not to poach her territory.
Remind me never to take the last piece of lemon cake when your around, m'kay?
Incompatible
They bring me the news after three rounds of tests, all of which leave me swollen, allergic, more determined than the test before. I either don't want to hear it or I don't understand; I'm too young to know better.
"Incompatible? A kidney is a kidney. I have two - they both work. He needs one. Take it."
Explanation, technico-medical jargon. The blood-draw sites are purple, oozing - no pre-test antihistamines.
Incompatible with his needs. If it's any consolation, I can give blood if they do find a kidney. I'm o-negative.
No, it's no consolation. No consolation at all.
Incompatible.
Man, there are some genuine corkers in here. Teppy picked a good one, you bet.
GUESS WHO MADE THE SEMIFINALS OF A PRESTIGIOUS ROMANCE WRITING CONTEST!
The Denver RWA chapter's--it's called the Molly. They're unusual in that they
have
a semifinals. Most contests just send the top 3-5 first round scorers to the final round judge. In this one you have two first round judges, and the top 30% or so make the semifinals, where you're guaranteed published judges. But I've usually been closer to the middle of the pack, so just knowing I'm in the top ten or twelve in what's considered a tough contest feels good.
