[Read] Hot Desk Extract: Andrew Sutherland - the migration of birds down the wet pathways of your blood

As part of The Wheeler Centre's Hot Desk fellowship program, Andrew Sutherland worked on the first draft of a blank verse novel that enmeshes the autofictional experience of living with HIV in the public health system with Queer speculative fiction.

In the novel, the narrator forms a romance with a man who he discovers transforms into an Australian white ibis during the daytime. This section of text is excerpted from an early chapter, in which the narrator goes to a regular blood test appointment the day after first encountering the ibis as a man.

Work passes like sleep.

As the day comes to its close 
I make my way to the nearest pathology collection centre
on the path between work and home.

Every three months, an immunology appointment to monitor the levels of the virus in my blood – undetectable, for years now, almost since diagnosis – with blood drawn for testing one to two weeks before each appointment. This is a holding pattern. After enough time (how long?), the tests will become less regular, spaced into further outstretched months, every four, every six. They won’t ever cease, completely. Not in any future I can yet imagine. This is not a great difficulty. This is a blip on the calendar, compared to what could have been. I am often reminded of that, sitting in the waiting hold for a well-meaning someone to take away my blood. 

one minute, love

She has nice hair, this phlebotomist; what must be a dyed streak of platinum blonde down the front of her natural dark brunette. It makes her look like an X-Men character. I wonder if this was intentional: we are probably of the same generation, though she seems older, weightier, more settled than I can imagine myself appearing. I won’t ask. She calls me into the room and I hand over the doctor’s form before I sit, reflexively placing my left arm with the crook of my elbow towards the ceiling. She scans the range of tests on the page, clattering a small handful of sample tubes into the shallow plastic tub.  

I’ll get you to confirm your name and date of birth 
make sure I’ve got that right

She has a pin fixed to her shirt: a fish, small and blue. 
She turns toward me, and the metal gleams as it catches the fluorescent light.

 
you’re not a fainter, are you? 
some people get dizzy after this much blood

          No, I’m not a fainter. 
          At least – not yet, not 
          so far as I know. 

She eyes me suspiciously, dissatisfied with this answer.

you let me know if you need to sit still a while before I let you go
I’m finishing after this, though, so it can’t be too long

I smile my assent as she tightens the strap around my bicep. 
A pause. The fish on her chest shimmers past again.    

I guess it’s not your first time?

          No, it’s not 
          my first time.

well alright then, love 
a sharp sting, now  

  
Every time it is a choice: 
to watch, eyes steady,
as the needle enters vein
and pulls the thick red out,
blood in slow motion,
or to keep it from my sight.
Every time is new. This time 

I look away as the needle pierces my arm. 
The briefest sting. 

And then it’s over. The blood is drawn, 
like always, and the bandage makes 
a sticking circle on the inside of my elbow.  

Evening falls a dull orange, and there is no one. 

I reach home.  
The door of my bedroom waits 
with a firm shadow. Shut. I open the door
and it is still there: the feather. Still real. I leave it
where it lies. I am not ready yet to touch it again, to confirm 
its hold on me now that evening has arrived. 
I want to see him. Feel him again.   

I check Grindr, letting the branded glow 
of the app on the screen climb up to my face. 
I match the sunset now, my orange underside 
meeting a falling sky. 

One or two messages, but he has been silent. 
I tap over his profile. He is not online. 
My fingers hesitate over the screen, 
wanting to call on him, to ask how he is, 
where he is, who he is, but I don’t. 
I will wait for him to message. 
I will wait another day.

I shower. Under the hot water 
the blood comes alive, dotting 
red beneath the bandage.

I dry myself. I return, naked,
to the feather on my pillow,
ready to put it aside, prepare 
for an early night’s sleep.
My fingertips close 
around the bristles
and I lift. 

Nothing moves. 
It is unbelievably heavy,
unmoving, unbearably so, 
and I pull with all force I can
and then – everything moves.   

The apartment is shaking,
or the whole earth does,
beneath my feet, or with them,
body untethered from verticality.
Am I cracking open, or is it my home,
or the suburb beneath me,
the lands on which I’m standing?

And then it stops. 
I release the feather from my grasp. 
Its white length stays rested on the pillow. 
It looks so light. It should only be a feather. 
I will have to sleep around it.