The Religion of Blood Medicine.

A review of Rich Larson’s “Maria and the Pilgrim” in Apex Magazine Feb 4, 2014 (available online at http://www.apex-magazine.com/maria-and-the-pilgrim/ )
By Derek Newman-Stille

Rich Larson’s “Maria and the Pilgrim” explores a future in which contagion has spread and a small group of people have applied religious meanings to the spread of disease. Seeing themselves as preserved by Jesucristo against a contagion spread by the devil, this group of survivors have sought a pilgrim.

As part of their religious dances, this religious group gives blood, allowing machines to pull forth sanguine liquid, offering it to pilgrims in the same way as they believe Jesucristo gave it to his followers. The pilgrim, however, uses the blood to test children for plague resurgence and health, determining the healthy development of the community.

This is a community shaped by eugenics, made to conform to a breeding programme due to the threat of Contagion. Health is policed, controlled, and regulated, permitting little variation from a set programme. Any children born without a membrane in this world are supposed to be exposed, left for dead, but this community wants the pilgrim to heal a child, restoring her membrane to help her survive. In exchange, they promise not to slip open the pilgrim’s membrane to give him the Contagion.

This is a future where even aggression is seen as considered genetic and an accusation of genetic aggression is enough to have a village sterilized and culled.

Religion and health combine in a system of control and regulation, shaped by a fear of exposure to disease. Life is regimented and controlled, and the body is a subject of policing. The policing of the body from a religious and medical perspective are intertwined in Larson’s narrative, exploring the multiplicity of bodily control that our social systems can impose. Fear becomes a powerful motivator for bodily regulation and control, allowing a population to submit without revolutionary thought.

You can explore “Maria and the Pilgrim” yourself at http://www.apex-magazine.com/maria-and-the-pilgrim/

Some of Rich Larson’s publications can be found at Amazon.com/author/richlarson.