This year would be different.

He’d eaten a huge breakfast, an even bigger lunch, and guzzled half a dozen flimsy bottles of water.

He was gonna get rich claiming money from the fraternity brothers who’d bet against him, boisterous guys who were now one pint lighter, chowing down on cookies and juice while they taunted him from the canteen.

As the vivacious young nurse swabbed the crook of his burly arm with iodine, the sounds of the Red Cross volunteers speaking to other donors spiraled into silence as if sucked down a huge drain, until all he could hear was his own pulse thundering through his veins.

Though his vision was quickly dimming, he saw the overhead fluorescent light glint off the sterile needle being brandished by delicate latex-clad fingers, and true to form, the biggest, baddest linebacker on campus hit the floor for the fourth straight year.

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A very loose interpretation of Lillie McFerrin‘s Five Sentence Fiction prompt thunder, inspired by my own blood donation yesterday. There was no actual drama at the blood drive, and no college football players were harmed in the creation of this story.