Sunday, December 04, 2005

First paragraph: Bleeders

From Annie McFadyen's story "Bleeders" in Tin House vol 7, on stands now:

The dialysis outpatients with complete kidney failure are called Tanks, because they never pee. Bleeders are the patients with thin blood. Neil appreciates the Bleeders because their blood doesn't clot fast enough to clog the dialysis filters Neil cleans at night by hand, in a bucket with a special brush. During the day, Neil works in the clinic with the dialysis patients. He pumps the patients full of anticoagulant, to keep the filters from clogging, and then hooks the patients up to the dialysis machines. But when he unhooks the Bleeders from the machines, anticoagulant still in their thin blood, they never stop bleeding. The old Bleeders, the ones who have been on dialysis for years, have rubber tubes spliced into their arm veins so the veins won't collapse from so many needles.