LJ Idol S11 Week 7: Feckless

Prompt: Feckless

Synonyms: useless, without effect

It looks so good, dressed up on TV: a little pill, not too big, not too small. White, because white means clarity and health and purity and other marketing things that Henry doesn’t buy into. The commercials show people on a beach, doing slow motion beach things, bright glowing light dancing on everyone’s shoulders and hair.

“Love the sun again,” it boasts.

Henry takes a ship through the straw of his blood pack. He’s almost through the blister and it’s supposed to last him until Tuesday according to the nutrient plan his doctor put him on. Now that the cure’s out, insurance won’t cover the blood delivery any more so he’s had to cut back on the good stuff.

Sun’s going down outside and he can feel it in his blood, like a rising tide. He can’t see it from inside his apartment; that would be suicide. But the little red numbers on his clock say it’s almost seven o’clock. Thanks to winter and daylight savings time, it’s safe enough.

He dons his windbreaker, turns the collar up against the wind, and steps into the dusk.

San Francisco is a good city to be dead in. Lots of people selling their blood for cash, lots of people to buy black market blood from, too-- Hepatitis tastes a bit funny, but it’s better than going hungry.

Henry hits up a vampire standing outside a 7-Eleven who gives him a hit out of the blister pack he’s sipping from. Even if he’s metabolically dead now, at least camaraderie isn’t.

In exchange the guy asks: “They gotten you to take it yet?”

The vampire he’s talking to is a short guy, maybe Puerto Rican. He’s got a baseball cap on, probably to hide his red eyes from passersby. Henry got over that urge ages ago. He goes out of the house and lets his dead-eyes wander, daring someone to start something.

Henry shakes his head. “Nah, and I won’t. I know it’s bullshit, everyone knows it’s bullshit. They can’t force it down my throat, can they?” He doesn’t say it like a question. Because it’s not a question. But it lingers in his mouth, a coppery fear that’s not the aftertaste of the blood. What if they can. What if they do.

The other guy harumphs, shuffles deeper into his jacket and leans against the brick wall.

“Yeah. Yeah, I mean, maybe. There are a lot fewer of us out at night, right? Might mean it works.”

“You take that shit, it’ll kill you. They don’t want to cure us, they want us gone.” Henry’s sure about it. It’s not like they can’t fake that stuff, all those commercials, all those testimonials about it fixing the blood disorder. Those stories about people going back to their old lives. Fake.

Henry wanders off after that, buys a few pints off a lady outside of a Walgreens under shitty fluorescent lights, and walks around the city for an hour or so. It’s changed, now. After the epidemic happened everyone was afraid, no one went out at night, not even him. Then there was a lot of nightlife after people started to get comfortable with the new normal. It was a good place to be. Lots of blood sellers, lots of friendlies happy to get bit, even, Dracula style.

Only lately, that’s changed again. With the cure come out the vampires wandering the town at night are fewer and fewer. Blood sellers still haunt the streets, but the prices are still shit and the quality is still shit. It’s not fun anymore.

That guy isn’t by the 7-Eleven the next night. Henry wonders if he’s taken the pill after all. Maybe he took it and then wandered into the sun, and then, zap. No more guy. Poof.

Or maybe he’s just somewhere else. Maybe he’s in the sun and he didn’t go poof.

The idea waszles into Henry’s brain and doesn’t let go. He imagines the guy using his baseball hat to actually keep the sun off. He can’t quite imagine it. It’s been long enough he’s sort of forgotten.

The commercial plays as night turns into morning and Henry’s starting to get tired. He’s got the place lined with tin foil all over the windows but he can feel morning leaching into his blood. The commercial plays basically non-stop from between 4AM to 6AM. Targeted market advertisement, which ought to be illegal.

It plays again and he hears “Love the sun again,” in that one lady’s voice, so hopeful and happy.

Maybe the guy from outside the 7-Eleven isn’t dead at all. Maybe he’s in the sun. Fine. Happy, like that lady.

He watches another hour of TV and the commercial comes on twice.

“Love the sun again.”

There’s a little phone number to call at the bottom. He punches it into his phone, deletes it, and then re-punches it three times, and then he sits there, staring at it. The little glowing rectangles and the street lamps and the fluorescent tube lighting of the blood clinic are the only sources of light he’s seen in nearly fourteen months.

He chews his tongue until he tastes blood, and he’s not sure if it’s his own or the aftertaste of his dinner.

He presses the little green telephone icon.