(Skippy, Pat, Ginger, Me)
I lie here in bed, almost dreading going into the city. Well, not the city, but Oakland which barely qualifies as a city, more of a municipal police zone.
I attempted an experiment, to see how it would feel. I drained a substantial amount of blood from my body into a bathtub filled with hot water. Once I had lost enough blood that I started to feel disoriented I stopped the bleeding with a homemade tourniquet. A thing that was once the cure is now a sickness. Times change, I suppose. Still, we must get the bad blood out somehow.
It started as an accident, then I followed through out of curiosity. I was cutting onions for dinner, and doing so far too quickly; grilled chicken, asparagus, with sautéed onions and mushrooms. A couple glasses of Cote du Rhone. A handful of Xanax and then a hot bath. I somehow managed to finish preparing dinner, and even eating some of it. Blood rushed from my body over everything that I came near. I told myself that things would be forgotten first, then found. It felt ritualistic.
The tub seemed to fill with blood very quickly. That's because blood is thicker than water, and hot water will cause dispersion and impede coagulation. It was a novelty how this mistake, a slip of the hand, led to this. This sudden urge to find out how something might feel. What to expect toward the end of expectations. I wanted to know what the last thing would look and feel like. I could feel my heartbeat through my entire body.
If you've never sat in a tub filled with your own blood you'll find that you might want a shower afterwards. The smell at first seems wetly metallic, but then it almost seems sickly sweet as if it was fruity or ripened. It was everywhere and never got the chance to dry. The water kept if from hardening, and decaying further. From within the filled tub it gushed freely, creating red blossoms of underwater inflorescence. I watched these flowers form and disappear. When I pulled the wound from the water it tasted just as one would expect, sweet and burnished, almost stannic, like foreign wine from an old copper cup.
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