VONNEBE.

There is no dignity in the smell of old blood. You would think so: blood has feuds and baths and money. Blood makes oaths. And sparks lust, and curdles in the victim and beats cold in the killer, and I am told it is thicker than water. But then it ages and the velvet goes. And in its place there are brittle pipes, and mongrels, and the afternoon kiln of the classroom in August, and cheap bread.

I am told by holymen that blood can be pure or be tainted. I am told by poets that blood can sing. I am told by doctors that blood grows brighter, more vicious in color, when it comes into contact with oxygen. That blood becomes more alive when it leaves a body, I find sad. I find it wasteful. So there is justice in time then turning it to dregs.

When I tell her these things, Claire puffs air through her nose quietly and fixes me with a patient look. “You work too hard is all.” She sets a four-egg omelet and orange juice in front of me, gently.

Such a considerate person. I think I may marry her, one day.

“That’ll be six fifty-eight,” she says.

I have been told that omelets are a poor choice of breakfast for a man in my line of work. That nausea, and fatigue, and intestinal gas are sure to follow. But the truth of it is that eggs are the only meat I can stomach. And breakfast the only meal that I can stomach it for, because it would be very silly to order an omelet for lunch or for dinner. Brunch is not so silly a time to order eggs, but it would be quite silly to order brunch.

“And your change,” she says.

Coins, also. Old blood smells slightly like coins. But mostly not. I am told that blood leaves a taste like pennies in people’s mouths, when they bite their tongue or when they bite their lip or when they swallow their nosebleed. I have done none of these things. I am told that it leaves a taste like pennies and so a taste like copper, but I do not think this is correct, because blood and coins have only iron in common.

The quarter in my palm is from twenty-three years ago. Two of the pennies and a nickel are even older. I cannot imagine the godlessness of blood at such an age.

I work in a slaughterhouse. I clean out the blood. My mother, she wanted me to be a surgeon.

(oh what's that Vonnegut? You say I'm not allowed to attempt an imitation of your voice for a plotless blurb, since I'm too aggressive with imagery and heavy-handed with characterization? WELL HEY GUESS WHAT YOU'RE DEAD)