Everyday Canvas

Ice

Prompt: Let's have some fun with fictional Friday. Write about a woman who literally has ice in her veins. Is it an ability or a handicap?

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After submitting my papers at the reception desk, I wait for my turn inside the lab for my blood to be drawn. This waiting room, in a walk-in-closet size, has three chairs, accommodating three people. The other patients line up outside in the corridor. I am in the middle chair, staring at the large framed picture on the opposite wall.

The picture, a reproduction for sure, shows an oceanside community consisting of small colorful cottages with boats tied at the docks in front and a pelican perched on a bollard. I recall my childhood when my uncle used to take me fishing. In those days, I had a perfectly functional body. What a magic slate, a sleight of hand, the memory is; now you see it, now you don’t!

The guy to the left of me says, “Why do they make this place so cold? I am freezing.”

The old woman on my right answers, “They have no consideration for the patients. I am so cold my fingers can barely move.”

I keep staring at the picture and say nothing. It isn’t easy to tell people that I am a walking freezer. The woman to my right bends down a bit and inspects my face. “You, too, my dear. Your color is gone like death walked over.”

Shouldn’t the phrase be ‘warmed over’? But I don’t correct her because there is nothing warm here. There is nothing warm wherever I go. I take the chill within me everywhere. Just then, a nurse calls the woman inside. A young man enters and takes her place as soon as she leaves.

When I am inside, next, I ask the nurse, “Is there any way you could make me wait in a separate room next time? I am making everyone shiver in there.”

“They were complaining again, weren’t they?” The nurse shakes her head, frowning. Since I am routinely checked, she knows of my plight. “People are so sissyish! they can’t take a little bit of discomfort.”

“Maybe they should be told,” I say.

“No, don’t you dare! There will be pandemonium to the nth degree. We’d have a lot more trouble then.”

“I didn’t say anything, and I won’t.” I sigh, then smile to appease her. The government and the doctors are letting me live free among people with the condition that I won’t tell anybody about the mutation in my genes.

I agreed to this, and I won’t tell the others that the same thing is about to happen to them, too, and that ice will form in their veins soon, also. They’ve already been through enough with the effects of the nuclear war that shook the earth five years ago; although, I am one of the first with this mutation.

I suddenly think of the robin flinging itself to the ground right in front me. That was four years ago. Small birds were the first ones to turn into ice from inside out. Then, the same mutation was observed in other larger animals, however sporadically.

I am not sure if I am the first one or one of the first with this. All I know is, they’ve installed several chips in me to watch and control me inside out, while they are trying to reverse this mutation or make it easy enough to live with.

“You’re done,” says the nurse pulling the needle out and pressing on its prick with a cotton swab. I hold the cotton swab in place with my other hand while she reaches for a tape. “It took a while to get the blood through the ice particles,” she murmurs.

“What will happen at the time when you won’t be able to?” I ask, even though I know the answer.

She looks at me with a sad smile and pats my shoulder. Once more, the image of the robin that flung itself to the ground reappears inside my mind.