Blood Rituals
THE PLASMA donation center is located in a part of Orlando far from the theme parks where tourists spend their money. I’m hungry. A friend tells me I can get paid, transmute my blood into packs of ramen and bags of rice. He tells me I might get some juice and cookies when they finish separating the plasma from my red blood cells and return the remaining components, plus saline, back into my body. I’m prone to anemia and worried my deficiency means I will be turned away.
The clinician, reading my paperwork, looks me over and asks how much I weigh, but I don’t know. I want to tell him that sometimes I feel as light and inconsequential as a dandelion seed on the wind. Sometimes I’m as heavy as a meteor scarring the earth. He sets.
