Test

 

Roger Noons

 

a Bloody Mary

 

The woman who pricks my thumb has purple hair; she’s fifty if she’s a day. Opening my eyes as she pipettes a globule of my blood, she smiles; remembers me telling her of my fear.

 

    ‘I don’t mind blood, although preferably that belonging to someone else,’ I remind her. ‘But I could never be a junkie, I have a dread of needles.’

 

    ‘That’s a good thing,’ she responds as she walks away, her white coat fanning out behind her. I think of her as my Persil Vampire, dream of her fangs against my throat. It’s only needles I‘m afraid of.