Blood: Reading Group

The guy across from me probably tipped the scale at 360 or 370. He was a big guy in cargo shorts, black xxxl t-shirt, sandals with a copy of a book about the occult on his lap. It was a hardcover with a complicated pentagram pressed into the front. The book's title referred to the occult in capitol letters --as a warning, I suppose.

From across the aisle, I could see he was re-reading his book. Somewhere, there was undoubtedly a notebook full of notes and observations. Passages had been highlighted in yellow and he turned the pages with fingernails that ended in sharp points.

My first thought: Are you fucking kidding me?

Of course, I was reading a book on freemasonry, only modestly less full of shit. I wasn't reading it so much to join up and rule the world (which would be fine), but to hear why Dan Brown is full of shit.

I saw what the tubby Satanist was reading and put my book down. I decided I did not want to have a discussion about "esoteric knowledge" at the fucking plasma center, not that I could have made out much he was saying.

Evidently, Lucifer had not provided his faithful servant with front teeth. He had a sloppy, toothless lisp, which quite frankly, creeped me out, with the Satanism book.

When he wasn't reading about the hierarchy of hell or learning about what sort of spells could be invoked to turn himself into a morbidly obese werewolf, he seemed to be trying to will himself to bleed a little faster --not that I blamed him. I was doing the same thing.

Meanwhile, quietly, the young, black woman to my right was going through a thick, dog-eared and ratty looking book on accounting practices. One of the attendants, a young, black man, tried to tease her about studying and asked her what it was all for.

"CPA exam," she said and I thought, well, there you go. That's the only power that's going to get you out of having to do something like this.

I wish her well, hope the test is soon and she passes. I hope she never has to donate (sell) plasma ever again.

The Satanist and me probably deserve this. Based on our reading choices, I'd think so.