We are in the courtroom.
He starts bleeding as soon as he sees her.
No one notices. The blood is dripping from his eyes and nose and pours out when he speaks. His clothes are soaked. It's a big courtroom so it doesn't fill immediately. One of the lawyers slips walking towards the judge, but still doesn't notice the blood.
I spirit walk from my seat and place the iv in his arm. I raise the iv pole, set up the poll filter and an open old fashioned glass iv container. Good that I am an old physician, that is, over fifty. All the other old physicians drop their equipment off in boxes as they retire. I have old medicines, old iv bottles, glass syringes and mercury thermometers. All ready for when the computers die, life support cut off by the rest of the world.
I think the judge can see him bleeding, but he is a professional and ignores it. The judge knows that he is unlikely to die here in the courtroom. Well, actually, he is dying, his heart is broken and bleeding, but his physical body is still alive. It's always hard to watch.
She wants him to bleed.
He is the unconditional love in her life. So he must bleed for her. She is too numb and too injured and too traumatized to bleed. She can't handle the feelings. She is very young. The memories are starting to surface and bring up the feelings. She can't handle them and so she has taken him to court. She is able to project the feelings on him and refuse to feel them herself.
I brush a feeling off him. They are demons. They are black and white. All sizes. Some are bigger than me. Many of them are screaming or crying, cast out from her. They have razor fingers and they slash his face and his arms. One has a sword and runs it right through his heart. He twitches. He can't see them either and he doesn't understand.
The demons are bleeding too and slashing each other. Other people in the room are bleeding. Not the lawyers so much. The rest of the room, old wounds open. I am bleeding too, but not enough to need transfusion. The demons bleed green and gold and silver and luminescent blue. It all swirls and is up to our knees.
I dip a quart pyrex measuring cup into the mix. I lift it and pour it into the open iv bottle. I open the valve and the mixture runs down the tubing and into his arm. His face, under the bleeding slashes, is white and frozen. I stand and dip and pour as the court proceeds. Not very sterile, but better than dead. And maybe someday she will be able to feel.