Bleeding - Short Story

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He sat in the chair, the wrist of the hand holding the gun draped over his blood-stained leg. All he could hear was sobbing and small squeals, hurriedly stifled. He supposed the sobs were either from fear of death or fear of his appearance. He stood up, leaving the soaked stool behind. He wiped the blood from his watch and squinted at the time. Fifteen minutes and nothing.

Holy fuck, they were quicker than this in the movies.

He stepped back towards the cashiers desks, the people huddled together on the floor shuffled away from his feet. He looked at the stuffed cash bags on the counter. He could take them. There were no cops yet. Nah shit, they’d catch him in a second. He kinda stood out in a crowd. He picked up a bag anyway and returned to the chair, the cushion squelched as he collapsed into it.

‘This had better fucking work’.

An hour ago he’d been sat in an alleyway, the same gun pressed against his forehead, the tension in his finger reflected in the strain in his eyes as he tried and tried again to completely fail to kill himself. He was succeeding at failing quite spectacularly. He’d tried slashing his wrists. Laid in the bath naked, sliced open his forearms and waited to die. He’d had to let the plug out before he fucked up the carpet in the bathroom. Luckily the university laid on a shrink for him to cry to. Didn’t help.

He was just fucking sick of it. Johnsonium nimium cruor they called it. If he could leave one mark on the planet it would be the name of a fucking blood disorder. It literally means ‘too much blood’. He’d been fine up until puberty, then the shit started. Nosebleeds once a week, then anal leakage. Then the ears started to bleed, eye sockets. If it was a doorway to the outside world, blood leaked from it. He offered to donate, be an everlasting supply, but the disease was in the blood.

Ed Norton once said you could drink a pint of blood before you started to get sick. Try 36 a day fuckwad. What the fuck did Chuck Palahnuik know about ingesting haemoglobin? The flipside was he was never hungry, the downside was he never knew when he was pissing or just bleeding again.

35 years old wearing a fucking diaper. They tried him with every kind of drug at the medical university with varying degrees of success. One drug levelled out the level of blood in his body, but only by thinning it out and accelerating the leaking. That was a fun day.

They’d found another drug. It was a hybrid of an experimental drug they were giving haemophiliacs. Stopped the blood a treat. But no drinking. No physical exertion. Try to keep UV exposure to a minimum. No spicy food. No sex. No life. He had his movie collection, but there’s only so many times you can watch a movie.

Then came the headaches, possibly a side effect of the drug, but the morons at the university wouldn’t own up to that. A small, dull ache he could manage. But this fucker pulsed through his cerebral cortex every time his heart pumped.

Another sob aroused his senses. He could hear tyres stopping outside, but no sirens. He turned to the cashier, cowering behind her desk.

“Did you press the emergency button?” She shook her head feverishly. He sighed in exasperation. “I’m not pissed off you with you, I just want to know if you’ve called the cops yet.” She looked at him, puzzled. He smiled at her, but the effect was probably spoiled by the blood pumping from his face. She nodded.

“Thank you”

He returned to the window and pulled aside the vertical blinds. One overweight black cop, standing by his car, looking up at the building.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Al” He pointed his gun up and behind him and fired. Screams. The cop ducked for cover behind his car. He saw him reaching for his shotgun and walkie-talkie. He smiled and turned. Everyone flinched.

“Ah, sorry about that. Look, this’ll all be over soon” The cashier peered over the desk.
“Why don’t you just take the money and go? I’ll show you the back door” A possibility? She seemed nice, invite her along…a pulse, the stabbing behind his eyeballs woke him up. He waved her to sit back down.

Minutes passed. He heard more tyres outside. Chancing a look outside, he could see blue barricades at the ends of the street. Nearly time. Should be getting the phone call soon.
The phone rang. He smiled, beckoning the cashier to answer it. She placed the receiver to her ear.

“Hello?… No, My name’s Naomi. I’m a teller here. He’s standing in the lobby… No.. no-one… he, he fired into the ceiling.” It made for interesting listening. He waved to attract her attention, as she looked at him he indicated the copious amounts of blood about his body. “He’s covered in blood… no, I think it’s his, it’s everywhere, it’s been dripping off him ever since he got here…. “ She proffered the phone to him. “They want to talk to you”.

The activity outside the window seemed to increase slightly. Sounds like the concept of someone dripping blood has got the trigger fingers itchy. Perfect.

He walked to the counter and the teller handed him the phone.

“Yup?”

“Hi, this is Dwayne Robinson of the New York Police department..” No fucking way.

“Hang on, Dwayne Robinson?” That threw him

“Um… yeah, why?”

“You ever seen Die Hard?” A pause, muffled voices through a palm-covered receiver.

“Um, no, but my lieutenant has. Yes, this is my real name, but we’re here to talk to you. Is anyone harmed?”

“Didn’t you just ask Naomi that?”

“Yes, but I’d like to hear it from you”

“Why, are you calling Naomi a fucking liar?” he smiled at her as he heard more muffled voices. Swearing helped. The pulsing continued unabated

“No, no, not at all, we just like to have all the facts before we start making decisions”

“Have you got google?

“Sorry?”

“Google, you’ve heard of it? Do you have it?” He could hear the questions being shouted.

“Uh, yes, we have it”

“Johnsonium nimium cruor - look it up, then meet me out front in 5 minutes”. He hung up.
Everyone in the bank was looking at him. Dripping, he picked up the money bag from the counter.

“Look, sorry everyone. I’m not a bad person, I just needed a way to end it” An elderly black woman looked at him with a puzzled expression.

“End what, child?”

He looked at her and chuckled, looking down at his clothes.

“It’s a long story”.

He walked to the door and peered outside. ‘Dwayne’ was standing in the street opposite the doors, flanked by at least 4 heavily armed and armoured.. SWAT guys? He hoped so.
He strode through the doors, money bag at one side, gun at the other, both leaving a thick trail of blood as he walked. The TV crews filming the blood-caked man walking down the steps. Dwayne looked exactly like his namesake. Tweed suit, slight quiff.

“How are you doing Nathan?”

“You found me then?”

“Over two-hundred thousand hits, yeah, we found you. What is it you want?”

This was it. The glib one-liner, the blaze of glory, and the crews were there to capture it all.

“I want it to end..”

He raised the gun quickly.



This work is copyright 2006 Peter Morris-Kelso. All characters and incidents are fictional.