THE MEDICAL INJECTOR

Antônio lifted the deep bowl before Divina stepped onto the porch. A bee was still caught between the damp cloth and the wood, beating its wings. Divina tried to brush it away with two fingers. The sting went into the base of her thumb. She shook her hand once. The bowl fell on its side, the clean ampoule rolled to the threshold and stopped beside the luminous band. Antônio crushed the bee with his sole, pulled Divina inside and rested her hand on the table. The skin was already rising around the red point. I'm allergic, she said. How much. Last time, my mouth swelled in twenty minutes. The authorisation to visit his son had lost forty-three minutes. The road required almost two hours, plus the bodily queue at boarding, lengthened for days because the price of energy had made every vehicle dearer. Antônio opened the thermal bag. He took out two fruits, the container of salt and a sealed medical injector he had bought for the journey. The balance linked to his body showed only an emergency credit. Divina saw the injector. That was for you. For no one, if it expires. He washed three fingers with the water kept in a bottle, fifteen millilitres counted by the marks on the container. He cleaned around the sting without squeezing the venom sac. Then he set his nail against its side and scraped until the dark filament came out whole. Divina was breathing through her mouth, short and fast. Antônio broke the injector's seal with his teeth. The domestic panel recognised the medication and asked for a clinical indication. He reported an acute reaction. The plan's artificial intelligence refused coverage because the patient was linked to the bar as an environmental assistant, a category that transferred care to the authority responsible for the sampling. Use it, said Divina. If I use it on you, I pay full replacement. Use it. He pressed the tip against her thigh for eight seconds. The internal plunger went down with a dry noise. Divina closed her eyes at the fourth second, opened them at the seventh. Antônio held the injector still until the display went dark. Then he marked the time on the kitchen panel and counted her pulse with two fingers on her wrist. One hundred and twenty-six. The visit authorisation lost six more minutes. The emergency credit disappeared from the balance, followed by a charge equivalent to eleven days of ice sold the summer before. The plan offered instalments upon facial authentication. Antônio turned his face away. The proposal stayed projected over the table, patient as a debt that had learned good manners. Divina pulled the container of salt towards her, but the lid slipped and struck the floor. Antônio bent down, picked up the container before it rolled outside and wiped the rim on his own shirt. As he straightened, he bumped the table. The instalment projection trembled and covered her swollen wrist. Outside, the bees were drinking from the cloth. The buriti kept four green leaves at the top, each smaller than the one before. Behind it, the dust from the pit rested on the low flowers and closed their corollas before dark. A beetle toppled on the windowsill, moved its legs in the air and stayed that way. Luzia passed the window carrying three empty containers, counted four under her breath and went back two steps to check. No one called her. Antônio raised Divina's hand above the height of her chest. He measured the swelling using the width of his own finger, first one, then almost two. He loosened her body bracelet before it could cut off the circulation. Then he wrapped a clean cloth around a sealed portion of cold food and placed the compress over the sting. Ten minutes, he said. If your tongue gets heavy, we go to the clinic. And your trip. He looked at his son's presence dot. The circle had changed place again. The authorisation had less time left than the whole route. Antônio opened the erased message, found only the empty field and recorded three words. I'm trying to arrive. He heard his own voice before sending. He erased trying. What remained was I'm and arrive, separated by a silence the assistant filled with a promise of a time. He rejected the prediction and sent only I'm arriving. Divina opened her eyes. That's a lie. It's a delay. Her tongue moved without weight. Her pulse fell to one hundred and eight. Antônio removed the compress, examined the skin, redid the wrapping with another face of the cloth and waited five more minutes. At the end, the swelling had not advanced beyond the second mark. On the threshold, the ampoule stayed empty. The official sampling could arrive during his absence, and Divina could no longer close the hand that was supposed to hold the tube. She tried to reach it. Antônio held her wrist. Not today, he said. The shared responsibility band took an hour off the deadline for postponed sampling. The panel reported that a new attempt would require the presence of both. Divina read it, took a deep breath and pushed the thermal bag towards him. Go. Antônio put the fruits back, left the salt and kept the spent injector as proof of use. He adjusted the bag against his chest. Before leaving, he set the kitchen key beside Divina's swollen hand, crossed the porch and ran towards the road.