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was nearly
filled to the top with the man’s juice. It was the color of light rust. The quantity
meant he was nearly finished.
    Sean closely studied the man’s appearance. His eyes traced the contour of his reclined
body, taking note of his monolithic outfit choice. His short-sleeved dress shirt,
pleated pants, and shoes were all black. The only variation was in the color of his
socks, which were a dark burgundy. At first, it looked like the man was wearing dress
shoes, but upon closer scrutiny, Sean determined them to be conservative tennis shoes.
The man wore no wedding ring. The book he was reading was called Turn the Tables ,
but Sean couldn’t make out the picture or artwork featured below the cover’s title.
The man’s fingers covered all of it.
    The gears in Sean’s head began to grind away.
    Though the man was wearing tennis shoes, he purposely had chosen a pair that was
entirely black and would have appeared to be dress shoes to the casual observer.
This suggested that the man was going for a professional-looking appearance. He possibly
spent a lot of time on his feet and wanted to wear comfortable shoes.
    His ensemble resembled that of a uniform, not an official government uniform by any
means, but rather that of a company dress code. Whatever the man’s line of work was,
he most likely dealt directly with the public.
    His plasma was a bit darker than most people’s; usually it was the color of straw.
This was a possible indicator of dehydration. In conjunction with his tinted glasses,
he possibly worked outside. But it was wintertime, and in the winter, dehydration
would more likely come from overactivity or the consumption of alcohol.
    The most interesting clue was the book he was reading: Turn the Tables.
    Sean cupped his chin in his palm and glared at the man so intensely that if he had
happened to look up and meet the larger man’s stare, he probably would have feared
for his life.
    Puzzle pieces bounced off the walls inside Sean’s skull for a minute or two before
they all began to fall into place. A sly smile developed at his lips and he crossed
his arms in front of him with confidence.
    “I’ve got your number, bub,” he muttered.
    “Sean Coleman,” an emotionless female voice called out from a clipboard a few feet
away.
    “Yeah.” He transferred his gaze over to a woman dressed in light-blue scrubs that
he had come to know only as Jessica, according to her name tag. She was one of the
regular blood drawers that stuck needles in people’s arms and fired up the machines
next to them to start the extraction process.
    Jessica appeared to be in her mid-thirties and was thin, with a light complexion
and long red hair that had a natural wave to it. The shade of her hair had always
intrigued Sean. It was deep in color, as if dyed, yet there was stark pureness to
it. It was unique. Though she never wore makeup, she was attractive. She had a firmly
contoured face with high cheekbones, and he imagined that she would probably have
a pretty smile, though he had never actually seen it.
    There was always an aura of sadness surrounding Jessica, at least as long as he had
been coming to the plasma bank. Her shoulders drooped and her eyes never lit up.
She rarely engaged in small talk with her colleagues and was mostly all business
when it came to dealing with donors.
    He wondered at times if she had lost someone on 9/11 or perhaps had a husband stationed
in the Middle East. There was no ring on her finger, though.
    Despite her standoffishness, he sensed her to be a kind person inside. She had a
gentle, nurturing touch. She was attentive, and when her warm hands slid the metal
into Sean’s arm, he never felt the prick of needlepoint.
    She wrote something across a clipboard before hooking it alongside his bed. She then
reached over him to snatch a Velcro blood-pressure cuff that dangled from a horizontal
bar mounted to the wall behind him. He watched her as she leaned in close, her long
red hair nearly