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Show "We're talking now." "No we're not." The man went back to staring at the ceiling. The silence between them was modified by the FM radio music. All the songs sounded the same. After a moment he said, "You don't have to keep pumping. That's just to help force the blood out. You're getting saline now. You don't have to do anything." The woman looked up. Above her, clear fluid was slowly dripping from the bottle into the tube which fed her vein. She stopped pumping her fist. She closed her eyes. They were both quiet. After a short time the man was no longer sure the woman was still awake. Then the man in white returned and again stood between them. "Well," he said triumphantly, "here it is." In his hands he held their blood. The bags seemed smaller and darker than when they went away. "You're such nice people," he said, "that I ran yours through right away, ahead of the others. I'm not supposed to do that." The woman opened and closed her eyes. "Thanks a lot," she said. "No problem, though I can't promise to do it for you every time." He hooked her bag of blood on the metal stand above her cot, in tandem with the bottle of saline, and again adjusted the plastic tubing. "By the way," he said, "you have excellent blood. Not like the thin stuff a lot of these people come in with." He twisted a plastic |