Blood
8 November 2007
Randall and Zema stood in the doorway in a state of shock at the sight of Portia bleeding in an out of control manner onto the ground. The blood on the floor was about the only colourful thing in the whole room along with the bright blue uniforms that the collectors wore; the rest of the room acted as a shine to the concept of sparseness. There was a desk in the corner with nothing but a few dried up red pens on it and a mess of unorganised paper, a couch was situated in the other corner that was missing its cushions. On the wall was a poster for some band called Fish that had the bottom ripped off. Around Portia was fellow collector Indi and the head of collection, Trams. Tull came running in and stopped cold when he saw the scene. Randall was the first to speak, ``What's going on?''
Indi looked up; she was small with soft brown eyes and dark hair and yet her presence commanded a lot of attention. ``I found her in here like this. She's passed out but alive... if that's the correct term for us.''
Trams, who was as dull as a parking lot spoke up, ``this is a very serious situation guys.''
``You're telling us. I thought it was just downright impossible to harm a collector!'' yelled Randall.
``Randall. Yelling will not help the situation.''
``Well just what the fuck will?''
Indi piped up, ``Stopping the bleeding for one thing''.
``But how? For we do not bleed'', said Zema.
``Well clearly that's not actually the case.''
Portia seemed to be slipping away; there was no physical sign of this but the collectors were simply able to sense it, Tull suddenly had a thought,``Humans bleed all the time!''
Randall nearly choked, ``Yes. And sometimes they bleed so much that they die. That's not very helpful you...''
``If you are going to finish that sentence with 'fucking moron' then we could do without it for now.'' said Indi sternly. ``But Tull does have a point; humans know how to deal with bleeding. We need one up here.''
``You can't bring a human up here!'' said Tull, ``won't it cause damage to the space-time fabric and potentially destroy the entire universe?''
Trams was the expert on this manner, ``no, what the hell do you think we are? It's just a building.''
Randall however seem concerned, ``You still can't bring a human up here.''
``Why not?'' said Indi.
``They're dirty. I don't want them up here. It's bad enough I have to transport them from their world to here without them infesting my personal space!''
``Portia is dying! Where's the nearest human?''
``She can't die. None of us can.''
``How do we know that? Up until today we thought we couldn't bleed either.''
While the argument was going on; Zema lay down next to Portia and spoke softly into her ear, ``how is it to fly with the doves? Are they as warm as welcoming as they always claim? What I wouldn't give to fly with you.''
Randall had finally given up the argument and yielded, ``Fine - there's a human downstairs in the processing room. She'll be the nearest.''
Trams, ever the administrator looked up ``Why did you leave her down there?''
``She was annoying me. I thought I'll leave her in limbo for a little while before I put her through the system.''
``So she's just walking around the processing room lost and confused?''
``Yeah.''
``That's not very good customer service.''
A splutter of blood threw itself from Portia's mouth as she breathed for air; she had woken up and was still weak from the loss of blood - with all the energy she could she said, ``I'm dying and you're talking about customer service?''
Indi snapped into action at the words; she walked over to Randall, ``Go get the woman.''
``Yeah. Whatever.''
Randall walked out of the room and to the stairs at his normal pace. Indi came out after him and told him to go faster.
``What? And break my leg? No thanks.''
``Now that we know that we can die. I am so going to kill you when all of this is over.''
Indi ran down the stairs towards the processing room as Randall walked back to the office and sat down. He felt comfortable. In the processing room Indi looked for the human that Randall had talked about but was having no luck; she looked around the reception area and found no trace of her, the people working at the desks said they hadn't seen anyone and then promptly went back to work. Finally she heard a voice coming from the back of the room, Indi moved quickly there and saw Judy. She was now yelling at the top of her lungs at what she thought was someone working at a desk; but in reality she was yelling at nothing at all. Judy had just taken a quick breath and started on her yelling again, ``Look here you! I DEMAND that you take me to your supervisor. Stop ignoring me! I'll go Kafkaesque on your arse!''
Judy paused after that. She had never used the word 'Kafkaesque' before and certainly had no idea what it meant. Indi took the break in yelling to talk to Judy. ``Hello madam. I'm sorry about the service you've received here today. Come with me and we'll make everything else a breeze.''
``About time I must say.''
``Yes. Don't worry, this level of service will not repeat itself. Now what's your full name?''
``Judy Guckerland''
``Excellent, come right this way.''
Judy followed Indi through to the stairs, it was during the climb that Indi thought to ask, ``do you know much about blood Judy?''
Posted byBren at 12:10 am
