Highway
"Have you ever thought about your own blood?" she asks, in the same bored tone as always, her voice almost lost amid the rumbling highway beyond the backseat windows.
The girl, who's my cousin, says her name is Ilia. Not really her family name, but the name she chose for herself. The name I need to use when talking to her, same for other friends. Strangers can use her real name. She doesn't care that much, really. Neither do I. I just use you.
"In what sense?" I ask.
My parents, in the front seat two rows in front, can't really hear anything besides murmur. She knows that. She would never talk about this kind of thing in their presence. In the front window, I can see the horizon, the sky like a black and dry canvas. No stars today.
"Do you think your blood really belongs to you?" A lamppost illuminates the car briefly. A faint glow in the bottom of her eyes "Like your DNA, you see.".
"What kind of question is that?"
"Just answer, please."
"Well, yes, I think so."
She smiles. Not a warm smile, nor a smug one. Just a conscious smile. The lips contort in the form of a grin, but her eyes remain the same. The irises like black marbles, staring at me. Or staring at some invisible point in the distance. I can never tell.
"It's just a liquid, you know. A very important and essential liquid, but nothing more than that. It doesn't have a conscience or a moral compass. It just flows through your organism, walking the roads designed for him. If you get cut, it leaves your body and then it dries up. If you are on the verge of death because of blood loss, you just have a transfusion with someone's else. Seeing as you were formed in your mother's womb, you could say that blood really belongs to her."
"That's not very scientific."
"Oh, suck it up! Try to think outside the box for once, you little skeptic."
"What's the consequence, anyway?"
She shrugs.
"Nothing, really. I just wanted a hook to talk about the flow extension I installed in my cardioid artery."
She then points at her neck. A faint white glow under the skin, blinking calmly. Almost invisible.
"Did you?"
"Yep."
"What for?"
"I can control the blood flow to the different parts of my body. You know, like the brain. I can use the thought flow freely with this little thing.” She says, tapping her neck. “It's just like one of those Bluetooth adapters, you know. You connect an artery in this socket and the other end in the other socket. Easy as that. My brain can work at full capacity whenever I want."
"Not really that much of an improvement, then?"
"Fuck you." She chuckles quietly. "My brain is good enough, better than yours."
"Yeah, sure. You sure proved that. Blood flow controlling, that sure sounds secure and not dangerous at all."
"Your sarcasm is too obvious, you know. You should be subtler. Do work on that."
The landscape beyond the windows is composed of black silhouettes of trees and lampposts. Nothing to see. Ilia looks satisfied with herself. I don't think she has anything to say now. Which would be a good thing in another circumstance. Not now, though. I am quite bored with this ride. Three hours, nothing in sight and nothing to think about. My mindscape is as dark as the sky. As empty, too.
“Anything to pass the time?” Asks Ilia.
“Nothing.” I respond, my cheek cushioned by the cold window. “My mind is blank.”
“That’s a first. You are always overthinking things.”
“Not today, though. Sorry.”
It’s morning. The sun is going up. The sky is still a little gray and so are the clouds, but everything is visible, if a bit washed out. A memory carrier in the sky, flying with a low buzz above the red ocean in the distance. The water level is rising up again.
“How much?” She says, reading my mind.
“Don’t do that, please.”
“Well, your mind is blank. I don’t know what you have to worry about.”
“What are you thinking now, I wonder?”
“Nothing much. So, tell me, how much did it rise?”
“Two meters, I think.”
“Two? That’s a lot in a month.”
“Yes, it is.”
She stays quiet for a moment. I look at her. She looks through the window, blankly. Worried, I think. Maybe. I’m not certain. Could be anything, being her. I like to think that she’s worried though. It’s more human than the other possibilities.