Hazmat Hearts
by Avra Margariti
It isn’t your own idea to start online dating, but Andreas’, your handler’s. He says you should put yourself out there, make some human connections. You don’t feel entirely human, at least not most of the time, but he’s right. If anything, isolating yourself in your new shoebox apartment makes your condition even more volatile.
The first date is in a waffle house, everything painted a sunny yellow and smelling of syrup and egg yolk. You’re in a form-fitting hazmat suit, courtesy of Andreas. You’re mostly safe now, they say, mostly not-poison, but you can never be too careful, right? The rest of the patrons don’t seem too bothered by you. A couple of kids asked if you’d pose for a photo, earlier. Most people just ignore you, and you guess there are weirder things than a former lab subject going on a date.
Your face is still visible through your clear head gear, but the world feels far away, as if observed through a submarine’s periscope.
Jesse, the boy sitting across from you, wears athletic wristbands, but they do little to hide the raised scars spanning the length of his arms. Some of the scars are scarlet, fresh, while others have faded to thin, pale lines on his skin. This is no lab scientist’ handiwork; you suspect Jesse has done this to his own self.
He holds your hand over the table. Skin on insulated nitrile glove.
“It’s okay,” Jesse says as he points at your facepiece. “You can take that silly thing off.”
“The radiation will harm you,” you say, because part of your agreement with Andreas and the rest of your team of handlers was being truthful about your condition.
“I know. It’s okay,” Jesse repeats hungrily. His eyes have a sharp shine, like light glinting off the edge of a razor. “I want this.”
You pull your hand away, tell him you can’t, you won’t.
His anger—his change of tactics—is instantaneous. “I don’t need you anyway,” he says and spits at you. The glob of mucus and saliva lands on the bulged glass of your facepiece.
You dip a napkin in your water glass to clean your vision, and by the time you look up, the self-destructive boy has stormed out of the diner. The cutlery set on his side of the table is missing a knife.
Two plates of golden waffles arrive, the vanilla ice cream pooling inside the chessboard squares. The waiter looks at you with pity. You pay for both orders but eat neither.
Your next date is with a girl named Annalise. You are prepared to answer any questions she may have, like how you can drink liquids in your hazmat suit (through a fine pipe attached to your wrist that travels all the way up your mouth) or how you go to the toilet. You’re prepared to be asked, “What’s it like being a semi-famous ex-lab subject?” and to answer, “That’s a fourth date kind of question.”
What you’re not prepared for is Annalise’s portable ventilator, or the oxygen-carrying tubes attached to her nose.
Between sips of hibiscus tea and tiny pecks of jam scones, Annalise says in her wispy cirrus-cloud voice, “As you can see, nature has already beaten you. I can’t get cancer if I’m already dying from it.”
When both of your dainty rose teacups are drained, you ask her over to your apartment.
Between kisses, you don’t mention the too-sweet taste of her mouth, and she doesn’t comment on the metallic traces your kiss leaves behind.
“Are you sure about this?” you say when she pulls off her shirt and untangles her nasal tube.
Her laughter turns into a wheezing cough midway. “I don’t exactly have anything to lose.”
Annalise says she tires easily, so you take things slow, lying on your colorful patchwork quilt—you’re not into white or minimalism, not since the lab. You touch, breathe in sync, laugh a bit, touch again. Skin on skin.
On the second date, you’re hopeful. You wait at the same teahouse as last time, but hours pass and Annalise doesn’t show up. Your milk tea grows cold. The sun paints your wrought-iron table in orange tiger stripes. You text her again and again, but there’s no response. Tears blur your vision, because you know, of course you know. The waterworks keep coming, and you can’t even dry your eyes through your bulky head gear. At closing time, when everyone has gone, the little old lady locking up her shop asks if you need her to call someone for you.
“There’s no one,” you whisper, voice raspy through your breathing apparatus.
“What was that, dear?”
You don’t reply. The world is submerged in murky water, or maybe you are.
You avoid dating after Annalise. Andreas visits your apartment once a week as scheduled, to oversee your medical tests and psych evaluation.
“She was sick,” Andreas says. “Cancer doesn’t discriminate. I should know—it’s wiped-out half of my family. You shouldn’t blame yourself for what happened.”
“Maybe I am poison,” you say, buried under a mound of blankets. Maybe the staff at the underground laboratory were right, keeping you locked up for your own good and everyone else’s.
“You’re not poison,” Andreas insists with wide-eyed conviction. “Poison is something to be avoided. You have so much to offer. Anyone would be lucky to date you.”
You nod toward the hazmat suit he always wears around you, the irony of his words. He becomes quiet then, his eyes sad behind the fishbowl glass. He busies himself with his needles and vials as he takes blood and tissue samples from you in order to measure radiation levels. The prick of the needle hurts. You cling to the pain, which makes you think of Jesse and his scars.
“I’m sorry,” Andreas says as he bandages your arm. He always apologizes afterward, unlike the doctors at the lab. “I’m so sorry.”
Why are you apologizing? you want to ask. Don’t you know I deserve this?
You lose track of time for a while, similar to when you lived in the lab, when you were called Radium Girl and the days and weeks and months bled into years, bled like you did on a silver examination table as nameless, faceless scientists tried to figure out what you are, why you are.
The next time Andreas visits, he says, “I’ve found you someone. A new potential date.”
“I’m not interested,” you mumble against your pillow. It reeks of sweat and giving up.
“Just give them a chance. Do it for me.”
You don’t feel like trying, but Andreas has always been kind to you when no one else was and advocated for you when you were allowed no voice. He’s the whistleblower who exposed to the world the scientists’ crimes against you and your fellow nameless, faceless subjects. He helped you find this apartment and take the first steps toward freedom, toward normalcy.
So, you agree to go on another date.
His name is Ektoras. He texts to say he’s already in the movie theater when you arrive. You’re late, nervously clutching a coke in your gloved hand. Some black-and-white French film plays across the large screen. When the projected image turns white, the dust motes in the viewing room swirl, alight. You think you won’t be able to find him, but your worries are unfounded. The theater is almost empty. Even if it were full, there’s not a chance you’d miss him.
You make your way down the dark aisle, toward the glowing figure at the front row.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he says when you’ve settled on the burgundy velvet seat beside him. He doesn’t sound angry you’re late, but awed that you’re here at last.
You both stare straight ahead at the screen. The movie is reflected on the curved glass of his facepiece. You steal glances at him every time he sips his drink through the wrist-attached tube of his hazmat suit. His skin, like yours, is luminescent in the dark.
When he catches you staring, his smile is even brighter.
You burn with a million questions. Had he been told his entire life there was something wrong with him, so he tried to find out whether he was beyond saving? Did he sign up for the research like you did, then regret it right away? Did the scientists at the lab hurt him, too? Tried to weaponize him?
Did they call him Radium Boy until he nearly forgot his own name?
You touch Ektoras’ hand when the movie is almost over, to make sure he’s really here with you. Your fingers interlace. Nitrile glove on nitrile glove.
About the Author
Avra Margariti is a queer author, Greek sea monster, and Rhysling-nominated poet with a fondness for the dark and the darling. Avra’s work haunts publications such as Vastarien, Asimov’s, Liminality, Arsenika, The Future Fire, Space and Time, Eye to the Telescope, and Glittership. “The Saint of Witches”, Avra’s debut collection of horror poetry, is available from Weasel Press. You can find Avra on twitter (@avramargariti).
© Hazmat Hearts by Avra Margariti. 2022. All rights reserved.
