YoungBlood by John McLaughlin
The morning after my nineteenth birthday, I finally worked up the courage to sell some blood.
I was lucky — type O-negative, a universal donor — so the YoungBlood clinic said I could have steady income. Rent being due in three days, I jumped at the chance for a couple hundred bucks. And if it turned into a regular thing, even better.
A friendly, middle-aged receptionist escorted me to the room where my first client waited. Mrs. Wheeler looked her age back then. Deep lines tracked her eyes and cheeks, a loose net of wrinkles weighing on her jowls. The YoungBlood staff sat us down facing each other, Wheeler and me, an awkward first greeting over the buzz and clicks of machinery. “You’re performing a noble service, young lady,” the technician told me, strapping my arms into the transfer station.
The thing about YoungBlood is: the fresher, the better. Cooling it down kills that something special — the scientists called it Substance Y — the stuff in youthful blood that actually makes the recipient younger. At first glance the procedure seemed absurd. Discovered in rats, then perfected in chimps and human test subjects, who could have imagined that the Fountain of Youth lay in a simple blood transfusion? But the window of opportunity was short. The life-enhancing quality diminished as the donor aged, and beyond about thirty years old the blood seemed to lose it altogether.
The technician switched on the flow. The transfer tube was like an elaborate bendy straw, slowly painted red as the blood left my arm, crossed the filter matrix and squeezed its way into Wheeler’s frail body. I felt nauseous that first time; chewed gum, tapped my foot, anything to distract myself from the bubble and gurgle of my bodily fluid. And then it was over and I was handed a lollipop and a package of cash. I thumbed through the envelope and thought about my other expenses, the school loans and car payments, utility bills and health insurance. So of course I came back.
We became known as regulars around the clinic, old lady Wheeler and young Dasha. Our schedules conveniently aligned and for some reason the woman took a liking to me, even requested me exclusively. Perhaps I reminded Wheeler of her younger self, or maybe I was a form she aspired to, an idealized end state of the YoungBlood treatments. So I’d sit and watch my blood flow, my earbuds humming a podcast, the steady background noise of Wheeler watching a soap or chatting on her phone.
On one appointment she could barely contain her excitement. Wheeler and her husband had just put a down payment on a second vacation home, a place by the beach where they could lounge on the front porch and watch their dogs run in the surf. “Tom, I’m just finishing up at the clinic,” she finally shouted into her cell. “Feeling so refreshed. I’ll call you back from the car!” And then she fumbled her phone, getting it back in her purse. I felt a jolt of sympathy then, reminded for a moment of Wheeler’s true age — her reflexes hadn’t yet caught up to her increasingly smooth features.
YoungBlood is still young. We don’t know its limits, don’t know how far the technology can beat back the slow creep of entropy. We Millennials are the first generation of donors; our parents and grandparents, the first beneficiaries of the miracle treatment.
On another visit, my twenty-fifth birthday, old lady Wheeler actually baked me a cake. “Look at you,” she tut-tutted, pushing a tupperware box of red velvet across the metal grating of the transfer station. “You’re not eating enough, sweetie. So thin.” She pinched my cheek. “And have you been getting enough sleep?” I dutifully ate the cake as Wheeler turned back to her reality show on luxury kitchen renovations.
I imagine month after month passing like this. Each visit, giving a little more of myself, Wheeler accepting it greedily, until one day, taking our seats at the station, the staff won’t be able to distinguish the 75-year-old woman from me. Won’t know which direction to transfer the blood. I’ll stare into Wheeler’s glowing, unblemished face, her eyes bright and unburdened of wrinkles. And when she looks at me, what will she see? A mirror image of her rejuvenated self? Or a mask of stress lines and dark circles, a youth prematurely aged.
“Dasha,” the receptionist greets me today, smiling, “it’s your ten-year bloodversary!” Oh right, I’m twenty-nine now. My years of YoungBlood cash have been shoveled into a bottomless pit of interest payments, medical bills, the random costs of a gig economy. “Thanks for the reminder,” I say, offering a tepid smile, and head back to the clinical suite.
Wheeler is already seated at the transfer station. In a blue sun dress and wide-brimmed straw hat, she looks positively radiant. “My dearest Dasha,” she croons, “happy, happy birthday to you!” An open box of cupcakes, finely laced with frosting, is waiting on the side table.
“Thanks, Mrs. Wheeler,” I say curtly, taking my usual seat. “I appreciate it.”
“Don’t be sour, darling. You’re still so young! Gosh, if I were your age.” Wheeler pauses, a dreamy smile on her lips, lost in thought. “Soon,” she adds. “Soon.”
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John’s flash pieces have appeared or are forthcoming in Flash Fiction Magazine, The Drabble, 600 Second Saga, and Literally Stories, among others. Visit him on the web at https://pineapplemonarchy.com/
