"You got here just in time," said the medic as he looked down at the readout.  "A few more minutes and you wouldn’t have been walking anywhere."

I struggled my way to a standing position and peered over his shoulder.  He wasn’t wrong.  If I hadn’t found this transfusion station, I’d have died right there on the street.  And there wasn’t much help for the wounded out there.

"We’re going to need to swap about two pints of blood," he told me as I plopped back down onto the examining table.  Two pints.  Good God.  I knew guys who died with one pint of bad blood.  I supposed I was lucky to be alive.

The medic continued to read the contents of my blood as he walked out.  I placed a hand on my forehead and felt the burning hot skin.  I began to wonder if it was normal for someone in my case to have a fever.  Someone in my case should be dead, I thought, so I should be expecting just about anything.

"Alright Mr. Hodgens," said the medic as he entered the examining room accompanied by two assistants.  "We’re going to start your blood transfusion."  As the fever began to make me dizzy, his words became more and more distorted.  "Just relax, and this will all be over in an hour or so."

"What’s his type?"  One of the assistants whispered.

"B negative," the medic responded.  Was he right?  I struggled to remember anything about myself, but my mind was far too weak.  I tried to remember where I met my wife, but to no avail.  I attempted to recall the year. Where I was.  My name.  But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t remember anything.  The medic’s words were nothing more than a buzzing sound in my ears.

They started by inserting one intravenous line into my right arm to draw bad blood, and another in my left arm to pump some clean blood into my system.  The process would take about an hour, and the medic would monitor the percentage of infected blood throughout.  Anything less than five percent was considered stable, and my percentage showed up as a little green blinking light on their monitor.  With my last ounce of strength, I shifted my head to the right so I could watch the screen.  The last thing I saw before I passed out was horrific: my blood was thirty-five percent infected.

***

It was about a week ago that I felt the symptoms of the infection encroaching.  I knew I had to wait six more days until I could get my transfusion, so as soon as the clock struck midnight, I jumped in my car.  I felt like I could pass out and any second, but I knew if I didn’t get to the transfusion station soon, I’d drop over.  I turned the keys and heard the engine straining to turn over.  This ’09 Mustang was an animal when my grandfather bought it thirty years ago.  I begged for it when I turned sixteen, but he told me I wasn’t responsible enough.  My grandfather died four years ago just after my twenty-third birthday, and sure enough he left it to me in his will.  But I didn’t take care of this classic car like I should have, and now, just as I felt myself growing colder, the old rust-ball wouldn’t start.

I barely remembered making my way down the hill and into town on foot.  I have no more than a glimpse of stumbling into the transfusion station, being rushed into the examining room, and pricked with an adrenaline booster to keep me conscious a little longer.

Whenever I dreamed, it was usually about the way the world was before. The days when oxygen came from trees and wasn’t expelled from laboratories all across the country.  The days when the government didn’t regulate air content at all.

They devised the technology about ten years ago.  The chemical they came up with was designed to reduce the amount of harmful chemicals in the air.  For a time, it seemed successful.  Air pollutants and greenhouse gases alike began to disappear.  The problem it caused, however, was far worse.

This chemical caused a horrific infection in human respiratory systems.  It slowly traveled from the lungs to the blood stream where it infected the body.  There was no known cure for this virus, and the only way to survive it was through blood transfusion.  The Medicare program adopted about seven years ago provided one covered blood transfusion per month, but these were rarely enough.  A person had to wait one full month before their next transfusion, and paying for extra transfusions outside of coverage was next to impossible.

"We couldn’t get him to wake up, so we just let him rest," I heard a voice say.  My eyes shot open, but the rest of me didn’t move.

"Well you have to get him out of here.  It’s morning.  We have patients with actual appointments coming in," another replied.  I pulled myself off the examining table and steadied myself on the medic desk.

The door swung open and I heard, "Mr. Hodgens."

I held a hand up and nodded, "I’ll be right out."

Outside the transfusion station, the sky was blue and the sun shone brightly over the empty roads of this town.  It was a beautiful morning.  I took in a breath and once again picked up on the slight chemical odor the human race had all grown accustom to.

I miss the good old days.