Juices: Beet, Human

I cut myself as I am grating beets, and do not notice, because my blood is the color of the beet juice. I grate and grate, and bleed and bleed. My mind is elsewhere, and I do not feel the pain. Only as I am finished grating all the beets, and go to wash the beet juice off my hands, it will not wash off. I run water over my hands, and my hands fill again with beet juice.

This confuses me just long enough for me to imagine that the beets have stained my skin so thoroughly that the stain had seeped into them. I think, I had been grating beets so long, I am excreting their juices!

I realize the truth, of course, and have to throw away all the beets that I have grated, and -- instead of eating the beets -- sit holding my beet- and blood-stained hands up in front of my face, so the bleeding will stop. My palms are still stained with beet juice. The beets I have thrown away are stained too, probably, with my blood. I have not been able to stop the beets' bleeding either, and now my counter and cutting board are both stained with our juices. And still, I cannot tell which is which.