Stanford » Mark

The first ‘interesting’ ability I discovered was when studying my wounds after dialysis. The dialysis needles are removed at the end of the session, and you now have two holes into your blood stream. Unfortunately, that blood stream finds those holes a viable direction to travel (whether patient or vampire it is the same at the end of a session). So the dialysis technicians ‘plug the holes’ with a lot of gauze and tape. After a few hours, the holes seal and you can take the pressure-bandage off.

Unfortunately, it is possible to miss the hole with the gauze. If this happens, blood starts spurting everywhere. This is a major reason dialysis patients have to wait after their session: to make sure they don’t spray their windshields from the inside when they drive home.

The first time this happened to me, I looked at spraying blood in a bit of horror. I wear a short-sleeved shirt for dialysis, so the blood was just shooting down my arm (the needles are aimed ‘upward’ when inserted) and not actually inconveniencing me. But getting bathed in blood is a bit disconcerting at first. The nurses simply cleaned me up, found the right spot, and tried again.

The second time the spraying happen, I intensely focused on the blood. This was a bit risky because I have previously passed-out when concentrating intensely on wounds, but this time the result was very different. I could ‘ see ’ the blood a bit more vividly than my eyes were seeing it. Or at least, more than my eyes previously would see it. It was as if it was glowing. This was interesting, and a bit psychedelic.

Beyond seeing blood — by focusing on it intensely, I could move it. Not very far, and not very much (no elevator scene from the Shining) so it wasn’t clear what use this would be. But I still found it fascinating. It was as if I was playing with rain-drops, except

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they were a deep red.

“Good morning Dr. A”

“Good morning Mark”

“I can see and move blood”

“Well… yes… it is a visible, non-toxic, liquid. But I am guessing you don’t mean that?”

“I can see blood even in the dark. I don’t need light to see it. I can even see it beneath skin. Apparently lead, wood, and concrete get in the way, but skin does not.”

“Well, that is unusual, but not unheard of”

“Other vampires can see blood?”

“Yes. There are some abilities that some vampires have. They aren’t very common, but they are also not unique.”

“And seeing and moving blood is one of them?”

“Moving blood? Without touching it?”

“Yes. I can make my blood move. Not very much of it, but I seem to be able to control more and more as I practice. I have not tried moving other people’s blood”

“Interesting…”

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MENLO PARK (4) » SUSAN

“So patients can choose whatever shift they want — and we need to balance for that?”

“Yes, the customer is always right. We are just poorly paid employees”

“This is keeping us alive… how can that be poorly paid?”

“Slaves were kept alive too. And it isn’t like this is just (or even) for our benefit: we are each keeping a dozen other people alive. How much would those people pay if we did it directly for them? Say get rid of the clinics… provide it directly.”

“I don’t know how much they would pay… I guess it would be some combination of what it is worth to them, what they could afford, and what alternatives they would have.”

“It would be worth their lives, so that factor is clear. But currently there aren’t alternatives… the clinics own the process keeping patients alive… and the clinics own us. It is like Amazon only worse: they have a complete monopoly and there is no possibility of competition”

“There are multiple chains. They should be competing.”

“Except we can’t change clinics. Patients can, but we can’t”

“The clinics are conspiring to keep us restricted?”

“I assume so. We can’t change employers… we don’t control where we work… we don’t control when we work… we can’t go out on our own… and we can’t negotiate a better salary, benefits, or situation.”

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“Has anyone tried?”

“I think so, but the results were similar to trying to form unions within Amazon or similar companies. It did not go well. I believe the leaders of those activities are not around anymore.”

“They aren’t still trying to unionize”

“No… they aren’t ‘trying’ to do anything anymore. People don’t appreciate undead who complain. We do not appear to have that right.”

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