Lifeblood

You learn to live moment by moment in a world like mine. Time as an entity begins to lose meaning, and even marking the hours by the old pink plastic wall clock—a relic I brought with me from my old life—seems merely born of nostalgia. I forget to care what the numbers mean. The TV stands silent, most days.

When I first made my choices, at the beginning, painting these walls butter-yellow and filling them with bookshelves from my home seemed like a good idea. But the books would gather dust, now, if they weren’t required to be sterile by hospital standards.

Inexplicable, really; it’s not as if a non-sterile environment would endanger me. No, when death takes me, it will not be by disease.

I fear weariness more than anything else. That, and losing myself.

My whole world is run by the machine.

Every day…is it every day?…they hook me in, and I wonder who will be the new person in the other half of the apparatus, the next dying soul they’ve wheeled in, silently, sedated—although not for long, once my blood hits theirs—all unknowing that the miracle cure upon which they’ve hung all their hopes is hooked in to a pod they’ll never see: a living, breathing woman. Well, half-living, at least.

After silent hours of watching my lifeblood cycle through the tubing in the pod wall, watching someone else’s tainted blood cycle back to me, feeling my entire body fight someone else’s war…after that, it’s bed and fluids and a carefully-balanced meal, then rest, then mandatory exercise, then more fluids, and the machine once more.

It’s a world I created for myself, years ago.

If I weren’t so tired, I imagine I could feel the same satisfaction—even joy—I once felt, knowing that at last my gift was truly a gift, and that the world would be better because of it.

I do miss that.

And then there’s you.

Sometimes you make me remember, too.

“Elena,” you told me, when I asked your name. When they decided I needed a physical therapist, when we realized my muscles were beginning to atrophy from the machine, then bed-rest, then the machine again.

I have never been good at noticing what my body needs. Perhaps it stems from the years when I thought universal immunity meant universal invincibility.

Now, since coming here, I have begun to notice acutely what my body is doing on the inside. The fierceness with which it fights all battles of blood. This has, after all, become the purpose of my life.

But my gift can’t reverse damage already done, damage brought about by sheer negligence.

So there you were, standing in my hospital home in your sky-blue scrubs, your brown eyes wide, wider than my little nephew’s on the Christmas we all spent together in a “real, honest-to-God ice castle,” about a month before I made that final decision to put my body, and my life, where my heart knew it had to go…

Anyway. Your eyes reminded me of Kevin, of that day, and I loved you for it.

But of course your wonderment was all about the machine, and about me, miraculous me. I know you’d had the fear of God put in you with dozens of non-disclosures and legal agreements before they even let you know I existed. But here I was, and there you were, and you called me Anolia Green, a real-life superhero, without realizing I’d heard you.

I loved you for that, too.

It made me believe all over again.

Not believe that I was a superhero, of course. But believe in my purpose.

Which is a strange thing to say, considering everything that’s happened since.

Or perhaps not so strange after all.

###

The second day, while you helped me through the first exercises, I decided to tease you a little. “I’m not a superhero, you know,” I said, and watched you duck your head and blush, realizing I had overheard you. “It’s just a weird, one-in-a-million chance genetic mutation.” This is what Dr. Hart and I had figured out, over ten years ago now, when we were still friends and taught at the same school, albeit in very different subjects.

At my words, you outright laughed. It was a beautiful laugh. “Haven’t you ever heard of the X-Men?” you asked me.

Well, yes. But…

And while I still continued to try to explain how my situation was entirely different from a comic book world, it seemed I couldn’t help but smile.

I think I had forgotten what smiling felt like, honestly.

I started paying attention to the time after that. 10:00 AM—that’s when you came in, Monday-Wednesday-Friday and some Saturdays. I might not have noticed the days of the week if you hadn’t started telling me. None of the other nurses—there were two—ever volunteered information like that. Of course, they never made me smile, either.

They were always pleasant enough. But of all the people I saw—even Dr. Hart, on those rare occasions—you were the only person who actually seemed to see me when you looked at me.

And you kept calling me a superhero, too.

“You know one of the X-Men can cure disease with a touch,” you told me; it must have been in those early, happier days, although I don’t remember exactly when. “His name’s Elixir. How does that sound for a superhero name?”

I snorted, playing along. “I can’t take a name some other hero already has. That’s just bad form.” Other names were brought up and discarded. “Panacea?” “No.” “Lifeblood?” “What kind of a name is that?” “Dr. Caduceus?”

“I’m not that kind of doctor,” I told you. (And as it turns out, the medical symbol is actually the Rod of Asclepius anyway. Who knew?)

Needless to say, I did not get a superhero name, and I preferred it that way. I didn’t need or want to be a hero.

But I wonder if even thinking about it marked the beginning of the end.

###

The change happened in you first, but it was weeks before I noticed. You started looking at me with concern in your face, more and more every day. Even while I thought I was doing much better with my strength and mobility.

I was tired, of course. But I am always tired. It’s just the nature of things.

Something in your attitude was shifting. You muttered to yourself, under your breath so I couldn’t hear. Sometimes I would catch you looking at me and shaking your head when you thought I couldn’t see.

“You don’t do much when I’m not around, do you?” You finally asked me one day. “You never even watch TV or read any of those books in your room.”

I didn’t really know what to say to that, so I shrugged. “You know how it is,” I think I muttered at the time. I felt a vague wave of guilt, but thinking about things like that made me feel even more tired. So I ignored your prodding about it until you went away after our session.

But you came back with even more concerns. “Anolia, don’t you ever get to leave the hospital?” You asked next. “How long has it been since you went outside?”

Years, I thought. But I didn’t tell you that. “It’s not like a prison,” was all I said. “I’m here voluntarily. I just don’t have the time or energy for…” Well, anything. Not since I started going into the machine every day instead of a few times a week.

When had that started?

I couldn’t even remember.

I said nothing of this to you, of course. I didn’t want to have to defend my actions and choices. I was doing the right thing, and that was what mattered.

But is this what doing the right thing should feel like?

You asked me, “Anolia, are you truly happy with your life like this?”

And I couldn’t find an answer.

###

At some point, when the questions become too many, when you can’t stop thinking about them no matter how hard you try…

At that point, something must change.

For me, it meant picking up the hospital phone I hadn’t touched in…months? Years?…and asking for a computer with Internet access.

I’d had one, at the beginning, and now I didn’t. It was very strange, when I bothered to think about it. What had happened to it? When had it disappeared?

The nurse at the other end of the line was startled by my request. Dr. Hart was startled. They didn’t have one on hand for me, they said. They’d have to get one special and it wasn’t in their current budget.

I was tired enough to be tempted to let it go, but something in me made me stick to my request. I wasn’t their prisoner, I reminded them. We were working together on this, and I wanted a computer again.

It took over two weeks, and a few more gentle reminders from me, before they finally brought me an adequate laptop, an older model with a barely-adequate Internet connection.

I started looking for articles about Dr. Matthew Hart, because the question that seemed to surface in my mind most often was this: What exactly am I doing here?

I thought I’d known the answer. But it seemed I needed validation.

Unfortunately, I didn’t receive what I needed.

You see, I still remember Matthew—Dr. Hart, that is—excitedly bringing me articles, right at the beginning, that had mentioned his partnership with LiveBio Lab for this experimental new treatment for rare and incurable diseases. People were lining up for the treatment; the waiting list was years long.

Those articles, in conjunction with some problems in my personal life at the time (heated arguments with my then-husband), had spurred me to decide to move into the hospital full-time and do the transfusion treatments (pre-machine) once a week instead of a few times a month. We were seeing success. We were seeing lives changed.

Now, with the machine not only fixing the clunky transfusion process but also running daily, I expected to see even more of these stories.

But I did not.

Instead, I saw nothing at all. Just a brief statement that LiveBio Lab stopped seeking grants for medical research about six or seven years ago.

I said nothing of this to you when I saw you.

Instead, I picked up the hospital phone again and called Matthew. Dr. Hart himself.

It took about a day before I could get through to him, despite the fact that he worked in the very same hospital that composed my whole world.

Still, he came to me in person. I told him it was a pleasure to see him again, which might have even been true. I showed him what I’d found on the Internet—or lack thereof—and asked him about it.

Foolish person that I was.

His response seemed frank enough: he said he’d discovered the lab couldn’t get grants without revealing my existence, and that would cause all kinds of trouble, including endangering me.

He didn’t say why, precisely, but his argument did seem logical.

“So we have to do everything privately now,” he said, “and all the money we earn from the treatments goes right back into building our research lab and funding the state-of-the-art equipment we need and so on.”

I had some more questions about that —

“The main thing, Anolia,” he reminded me, “Is that we need to find a way to isolate your blood from your body without killing its properties, and we still don’t have that.” And yes, that was the thing that had stymied us so far, keeping us from being able to turn my unique mutation into an actual medication for the masses.

But I already knew all that information.

In fact, I realized, after he shook my hand and left…he hadn’t really told me anything new at all.

What’s more, he’d taken my laptop with him.

And I didn’t get it back.

###

That’s when I started relying on you, Elena, and for that I am sorry.

I hate to think that I caused you trouble.

But I know I did.

You were eager to help. So eager, in fact, that I wonder now if you hadn’t already been doing a little side research of your own regarding my situation. Some judicial snooping around the hospital files.

The information you brought back to me was not reassuring.

Patients with incurable diseases and conditions were still coming to us, yes. The waiting list was still years long, although immediate needs did get first consideration…for a price.

This experimental, semi-secret, non-FDA-approved cure—Dr. Hart was charging over one million dollars per patient. All that money for a few hours with the machine, with me, fighting a battle of blood.

This was not what I had signed up for.

For the first time, I thought: I need to get out.

The trouble was, when?

When do you decide, that’s it, the next person who has signed up for this miracle treatment because they are dying doesn’t get the gift of life?

There is always a next person, and a next person.

“I can’t do it,” I finally told you. You were holding my hand as I sat on the bed, tired from the therapy and from the machine. My clock had vanished, somewhere in the past week, and I was suspicious that Dr. Hart and the other nurses had actually upped the frequency of my time spent in the machine.

But it was hard to tell when I couldn’t even tell what hour it was anymore.

I’d had blackout blinds put on the windows a few years ago, when I started needing more naps…a mistake, since now I was generally too tired to walk over and raise them.

And I couldn’t even rely on you to keep me on track, because they had reduced your days with me to once a week.

I think.

So I think I’d been wrestling with this impossible question for about a week as well. And when your hand tightened on mine, I know you didn’t like the conclusion I’d come to in your absence.

“I know, I know,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut against the look on your face. “I don’t approve of his methods. I’ll try to negotiate with him about that. But I can’t just leave forever…I can’t even ask them to change all this to suit me better…” I gestured to my room, to the door that adjoined the chamber with the machine. “Because there are so many people, Elena. So many with horrible diseases that are killing them…not just cancer. Not just AIDS. Diseases and conditions that aren’t getting researched because they’re so rare, which means they may never get a cure. How can I abandon them? How can I question the methods, when the results are actually saving lives every day?”

That was the crux of my problem. It was the reason I had left my own family—left Daniel—to do this thing in the first place.

You kept holding my hand, but you were shaking your head the whole time I spoke. “Anolia, whatever your old friend is using that money for, not even half of it is going into the research lab,” you said tightly, when I finished talking. You pulled a flash drive from your pocket, although of course I had no computer to use it on. “Can you let him exploit you, and take the money of desperate people, when it’s ultimately only a stopgap and he’s not even trying to work toward the greater good?”

Ah.

It’s strange.

Hearing those words from you may have destroyed my already-wavering faith in Matthew Hart, but it restored my hope.

It meant I could leave without guilt. If I left, it would be for a greater good. I could still use my gift like a real hero would.

I’d have to either try to find someone incorruptible, or find a way to found my own research lab. I could do that. I could make it work. I could ensure it was moving toward a future where everyone was cured, not just the people with desperation and deep pockets.

Leaving was the right thing to do.

It made me feel giddy, knowing this.

“You could start living again, Anolia,” you said to me, softly. The light in your eyes told me how much you cared about this. About me.

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot,” you continued. “I don’t think they will let you go easily. Think about all the changes they’ve been making over the years. Designed to keep you tired and compliant. So you don’t ask questions or demand things. Just think about this past week, if you need proof of that.”

A sobering thought indeed.

You put something into my hand. “I’ve been doing a lot of research. There is a particular human rights group that handles strange cases like yours. They can get you out and help you stay under the radar until you figure out what you want to do with your life.” I looked; it was an object that nominally resembled a cell phone, only much smaller. “You just hit that button to call, and —”

The outer door opened, and we hastily hid the device within my hospital cot. One of the regular nurses, Joan, came in briskly. “We’ve got an eleven-year-old girl coming in with an emergency,” she told us as she began to hustle you out. “Physical therapy time’s over.”

I wondered at the timing, but…an eleven-year-old girl. Joan could be lying. But what if she wasn’t? I couldn’t risk being the reason a child died.

I said nothing as you were pushed out the door. I said nothing as I entered the machine, perhaps for the last time.

###

But it wasn’t the last time, because Dr. Matthew Hart himself visited me next.

“I’m concerned,” he said without preamble. I was resting again in my room, now void of clock, phone, and TV. The books hadn’t been touched…yet.

Matthew sat down beside my bed. “Someone has been getting into LiveBio’s protected files and financials. Do you know anything about that?” His eyes bored into mine, and I wondered if I could lie to someone who’d known me for over fifteen years. “You’ve been behaving very…unlike yourself…recently,” he continued. “What’s changed? We’re still doing everything we set out to do. Together.” He put his hand on mine, but there was none of your warmth there. He didn’t care about me the way you did. I knew that then, and I know it still.

“Where’s the money going, Matthew?” I asked quietly, withdrawing my hand. “If it’s going to further research, that’s one thing. Of course I want to save lives. But I also want to build toward a future where a real cure exists. Not just me and my limitations. We both agreed this was about the future. A future without disease.”

“It is,” he said, leaning forward. “I told you, that’s what this lab is working for—”

“Then,” I raised my hand, a tired gesture that still managed to interrupt his flow of words. “Why…have I, ah…heard that half of the money is going elsewhere?” I was careful not to mention you, in what turned out to be a pointless gesture.

He could have outright denied my accusation, and I would have known he was a liar, and strengthened my resolve to get out then and there.

But instead he said, “Bribes, of course. Protecting you, protecting our mission. I’ve had to pay a lot of bribes to keep this from being taken out of our control. Or getting shut down.”

He sighed heavily. “I’m not proud of it, but it was absolutely necessary. This was—and is—always about our future without disease, Anolia. Always.” He sat back, watching my face as I processed his words. “And you can ask your little informant to verify, too.” He stood up. “Thanks to you, I’ll probably have to pay her another bribe to keep quiet about her digging.”

My head was reeling as he left. I couldn’t think. Was bribery a justification? How could I know what was right? What was good?

And what about Elena? What about you?

It is a point in your favor, Elena, that I didn’t even consider that you would be taking bribes from him. I thought that was stupid.

But I did wonder, then, if you had been lying to me; if you had known the money was for bribes, which were all about keeping the research alive, and you had just withheld that information so I would decide to leave.

Or maybe you hadn’t seen the bribes as a necessary part of the project.

In some ways, I could agree with that. But from a strictly utilitarian standpoint—if I wanted to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people—maybe it was a necessary evil. I didn’t know.

But you still should have told me…and I still should have asked.

Instead of jumping at the chance to escape. Selfishly.

###

True to Dr. Hart’s word, you showed up the very next day, proving that he indeed knew the identity of my informant. “I don’t know why they scheduled me today,” you started, but I interrupted you.

“Was the money really for bribes to keep the research safe?”

You were taken aback. “Well, yes,” you said. “But does that matter? It’s wrong. You can’t be sacrificing your life and happiness for something like that. Right?”

I didn’t know.

It wasn’t about ethics alone. There were still lives at stake. And a future I believed Dr. Hart was still genuinely working for.

And it couldn’t be about my feelings, my happiness, my life.

You knew that. We’d talked about it.

The silence grew, and as it did you became more and more incredulous. “You can’t be thinking about staying now,” you said. “Can you?”

“I have to think about lives saved,” I whispered, looking at my hands. “I can’t just think about me.”

You took both my hands and looked into my eyes. "I love you, Anolia Green," you said simply, and my heart grew so full and warm, despite my misgivings, that I couldn't speak.

I don't know what you saw in my eyes, but I think it was enough.

You said, "I love you, and I can't stand watching you die by inches."

And the warmth fled.

Oh, Elena, I know now that you spoke those words truly from the heart.

You couldn't have known they were the wrong ones.

And yes, I realize now they were nothing like Daniel's words to me ten years ago...but they hit all the same places. That you loved me, I didn't doubt for a second. But Daniel, my husband, had loved me too.

He had loved me, but selfishly. He hadn't been willing to let me do my life's work, not when he realized the true extent of it. It took me away too much. It left me periodically tired, when I did the transfusions a few times a month, although nothing like now. But what’s more, I was always thinking about it. Talking about it. Talking about Dr. Hart, too. Daniel became less and less tolerant, not caring about the lives we were saving.

He said he was concerned about me, but back then I had been fine, really. I knew it wasn't about me, it was about him. It was about our love and how he perceived that relationship.

I couldn't sustain a love based on selfishness, so I broke it off. And told Dr. Hart I wanted to join the research efforts full-time.

I wanted to prove that love could, and should, be selfless.

And then there you were, telling me you couldn’t watch me like this, and it felt like the opposite of selfless love all over again.

I didn’t know how to tell you that, properly. “I’m not dying,” I said, withdrawing my hands from yours. “I’m living in the way I think is right.” I looked away from the hurt in your eyes.

Of course I should stay here. I couldn’t just be thinking about what you or I wanted out of life.

“Anolia, you can’t…”

I shook my head. “Don’t,” I said. “Don’t make this worse.” I kept my eyes trained on my lap until you moved away.

I didn’t look up when you opened the door to leave, but I did hear you say quietly, “I’ll be back next week, Anolia Green.”

###

But you weren’t.

I didn’t see you again.

And when I asked Dr. Hart, and he said you had taken a bribe and left, I didn’t believe him, Elena. I looked in his eyes and I knew he was lying.

And I didn’t know what it meant, but I feared.

Oh, I still fear what it means.

The knot won’t leave my stomach, Elena. I remember all the words I never said to you. Every time Joan makes me do the exercises you devised for me, the knot tightens.

I wonder how much money Dr. Hart is paying Joan to keep her mouth shut.

I wonder about a lot of things, when I have the energy to do so. Time loses all meaning; the nurses never open the windows for me when I ask. I’ve spent much of my time in a haze punctuated by brief moments of clarity.

But I do know this, in those moments. I realize it now: Matthew Hart may think he is working toward the greater good, but he does not do it out of love. If he believed in it, truly, if he was doing it out of compassion for the world, he would never stoop to these methods.

He has forgotten how to love, and so have I.

Or I had, until you.

You weren’t loving selfishly…and I wasn’t loving selflessly either. Self-sacrifice does not equal love, not when you have forgotten what it is like to be human in the first place.

Not when you’ve forgotten how to love yourself, too.

###

I remembered the device you gave me, Elena. I found it stuck in my bed today, and remembered what you said. I pushed the button.

I am free.

I’m going to start my own project. Project Lifeblood, I’ll call it. I have a shot at this, and I’ll do it on my terms. In the meantime, I’m working with these people to do some sneaky, small-scale healing for HIV-positive people, especially the ones without funds to treat themselves.

This group you found, their resources run deep. If anyone can find you, they can.

I count the days until I see you again, Elena.