Work Text:
Wild shit. Just the other day, you were chilling with your buddy, no worries in the world. Today, you’re holding a VIP invitation from his parents to attend his funeral. And you showed up — your friend’s dead, after all.
Flowers everywhere. Enough to leave the local guys scratching their heads for days, wondering where to scavenge a single bouquet for their girls. Roses, chrysanthemums, lilies — name it, it’s here. In the center of the chapel’s farewell hall stands a polished coffin with the lid wide open. Inside lies my buddy. In a sleek black suit they dressed him in after he died, he looks like a goddamn Harvard student. His face — so clean, so intelligent — makes you stop and wonder: Did I even know this guy? Or did I walk into the wrong funeral?
And oh, how he must have laughed, looking down from above, seeing the layers of makeup they caked on his face! I never put on this much spackle, even back in college. They covered every sore, bruise, and wrinkle, smoothing them out so much that he looked five years younger — minimum.
Rested. Refreshed. Just a bit dead.
Yeah. That’s how his parents wanted to see him. Not in the vomit-stained sweater worn inside out, like I’d seen him. Not covered head to toe in maroon blotches, looking like a goddamn Dalmatian, like I’d seen him. And definitely not a junkie who had his whole life ahead of him but wouldn’t get to see it because, at twenty-six, he dropped dead of AIDS.
You’re standing there in a pine forest, surrounded by stone monuments, watching them shovel dirt onto your buddy. The same buddy you split a check with just the other day. And you’re finally starting to get it — he’s gone. You’re standing in a pine forest, surrounded by stone monuments, watching them bury your friend for the third goddamn time.
You’ve outlived all your partners, but nobody’s handing you a gold star or a chocolate medal for it. It was only a matter of time before Death came knocking on your door.
This shit shocks you. But it doesn’t stop you. That much I’ve learned again and again.
The whole thing was done to perfection — feng shui kinda level. The decorations, the ceremony, the gravestone, the prepaid grave lease for twenty-five years. All that was missing was a juggler and a buffet. This party for seventy guests definitely cost his folks more than two grand. I’d bet on three, minimum. They weren’t exactly the kind of family that could afford black caviar on their toast in the morning. Every Friday, he’d buy a lottery ticket, but all he ever got was a hole in his pocket. He’d laugh, saying, “One day I’ll win big, and you’ll eat your words.” And how he must have laughed, doing the math from above, thinking about all the drugs he could’ve tried with the money they spent to bury him.
It all would’ve been fine. If I hadn’t found the same maroon sores on my own back.
Some random jazz song looped endlessly in the call center’s hold queue, hypnotizing me by the thirty-first minute as I kept trying to get through. My heart was pounding out of my chest, my hands trembling like hell. Violins and saxophones bore down on me like a migraine. That’s when the memories — long since faded — played back in sharp focus, like someone cranked the brightness and saturation just to make me relive that day all over again.
I didn’t want to look into that flower-covered coffin again. Because I was afraid that instead of my friend, I’d see myself lying there.
I’m sitting in the hospital hallway, my heel tapping the floor harder than a jackhammer, while some damn fly buzzes around, tearing apart the last shreds of my self-control. None of my dead buddies would’ve ever believed I’d come here on my own two feet.
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
The consultation center turned out to be something called the “Hope for Families Association” — basically, a rehab recruiting hub. I figured it out instantly when I saw the posters hanging under that loud, self-righteous prayer. Each one showed the daily life of an average junkie: Here we are eating, here we are taking a walk, and here we are in group therapy with Uncle Rehab Doc. A photo album for the parents. So sweet it felt like summer camp, with kids jumping rope and picking berries in the woods. I wondered if even one person in those pictures had ever truly made it out.
I sat there, racking my brain to figure out why they weren’t charging money for the test. Bet they made thirty times more off this scam somehow. “Hope for Families.” What a dumb name. In a family with a junkie, hope is already long gone.
Ha.
“Why did you decide to get tested, sir?”
I cleared my throat. For a guy women usually speed up to avoid on the street, pretending to talk on their phones when they see me coming, this one-on-one with a lady was… unusual. Even if she was just a forty-something in a lab coat filling out a questionnaire.
“Just felt like it. For myself.”
She was tall. Maybe forty-five. I stared at her with something like admiration, already wondering if I’d ever live to her age — like she was ninety or something.
“Have you had any direct contact with blood recently?”
“Uh… no. I don’t think so.”
I hadn’t been this nervous even during exams — not that I showed up to those. Sitting on that chair, gripping its edges like my ass was on a barrel of pentaborane that’d blow at the slightest air exposure, I felt more like a scolded school kid than a grown man testing for AIDS in rehab. Even saying that out loud still sounds insane to me.
“Are you sexually active?”
“Well, yeah. Once. Back in 2003.”
The words just hung there, stupid and flat. She didn’t laugh, obviously. Just pursed her lips and ticked a box. Fair.
“Are you heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual?”
Cue the crickets. I gave myself a slow once-over from my shoes to my chest, then concluded:
“Wouldn’t say I’m anything… sexual.”
“Do you like girls or boys?”
Pause. Processing.
“Oh, nah, I’m, uh… regular.”
What the hell is ‘regular’? What am I, a fucking yogurt?
She exhaled deeply. Tough case. My one comfort was knowing I’d never run into her on the street again. Not that I was new to humiliation. In that sport, I was a goddamn champion. I could’ve gone straight to the Olympics from there, to get a medal for screwing up basic conversations. Chocolate one, obviously.
“Have you used drugs?” she asked, like she hadn’t already read it on my face. Hell, my mugshot could’ve been on their wall. The guys in those rehab posters looked better than I did.
“Is anyone gonna read this later?”
“No, sir. This visit is entirely anonymous.”
“Well then… yeah. Write it down.”
Admitting it felt like sitting there in soiled pants. But she didn’t even flinch. To her, I was just another ruined portrait in a daily slideshow. And I still couldn’t face what I really was — ugly, sick, and pathetic.
“Have you used drugs intravenously?”
I swallowed hard and ran a hand over the hair.
“Oh, not just that. Far from just that.”
And that’s what did me in.
In this race, I had beaten out plenty of amateurs. Over my short and meaningless life, I managed to shove my nose into more drugs than Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo hauled with them to Vegas. For the first couple of years, I even kept a mental list. Made some kind of top ten, tried to find my flavor in this sea of chaos, like a kid learning to tell sour from sweet. Eventually, I lost count. Some of the names I forgot, and some I never even knew. My memory’s shot to hell. Has been for a while. I’m spiraling.
This wasn’t exactly a safe hobby. Riding a motorcycle at 120 miles per hour, at least you can put a helmet on your stupid head. Sleeping around, you can always buy condoms. But this shit? There’s no protection. And damn, does it grip you harder than anything else.
Sometimes, I wished my parents had broken my legs and chained me up. Other times, I wanted to pawn my mom’s earrings to buy a few more doses of PCP.
And that’s what did me in.
The lab didn’t care if you were David or Leatherhoff — my whole damn identity boiled down to a five-digit code with a G and a slash. The envelope in my hands trembled like an aspen leaf, and there were already damp spots at the corners from my fingers. The letter was sealed with top-notch security measures: two barcode stickers — one from the contractor and the other from the diagnostics lab — a sticker with my assigned number, and a ridiculous code word scribbled by hand. A code word I hadn’t spoken so much as croaked out to get my results. And, of course, the fat stamp of this stupid association.
It looked like something meant for a member of parliament or even Carl XVI Gustaf himself — not the kind of thing you’d get in the mail. Which meant that in two weeks, I had to pick up the paper in person and meet this sweet lady again, who, judging by her expression, already had a gag reflex triggered by the sight of me.
I was wound tighter than ever. The consultant sat at her desk, not giving me a second glance, and I wondered if she already knew what the envelope held for me.
I opened the letter and pulled out the questionnaire with the result sheet.
Those two weeks had dragged on like a goddamn eternity. I’d taken a knife, stood in front of the mirror, and considered carving those sores out of my skin like they were a callus that needed to be popped with a needle so it would heal faster. Like they were infected meat that had to be cut away before the whole carcass rotted from head to toe. I slept on my stomach — if I slept at all. Because sleep wouldn’t come, not even for a second. If I closed my eyes for even a moment, that dream came back.
Flowers all around. In the center of the chapel’s farewell hall stood a polished coffin with the lid wide open. Inside it — me. In a stylish suit my parents had dressed me in after death. Everyone in black, my mom crying, and my face so caked in foundation it looked like I’d been covered in wax.
Junkies die pitiful deaths. But they get sent off in style.
The mother of another dead guy even spent the wedding budget on his funeral. But — what a joke — the only woman who ever touched him was Death.
And I knew, with absolute certainty: she’d be visiting me soon, too. She’d already sent me a message. A white envelope with three stickers.
In moments like these, you’d drop to your knees before anyone who believed you’d turn your life around tomorrow — just for a chance to be healthy. You’d swear on everything holy that you’d never touch that shit again. You’d even start to believe it yourself — just for a chance to be healthy.
Death was breathing down my neck, and I crossed my fingers as I unfolded the results. I’d never felt her so close. I’d never wanted to live so badly.
And then I saw it.
Positive.
I didn’t read any further. The world blurred and spun, like I’d been strapped into a children’s carousel and sent spinning in circles. I looked through the result sheet, through the chestnut linoleum floor, through the concrete foundation, through the goddamn Earth’s mantle itself. I didn’t see anything. Nothing but the one massive word, italicized and bolded for emphasis.
Positive.
“What does it mean?”
I jabbed my finger at the page, and she squinted at it. Her face didn’t flinch. How many of these had she handed out? How many doomed souls had passed through her office? How many were already six feet under?
“Well?”
By now, even a stump could’ve figured it out. But when faced with something this insane, you just want to believe it’s a stupid joke. I barely stopped myself from grabbing her by the throat — just to get the answer I wanted to hear. Not that it would’ve changed anything.
“It means you’re sick, sir.”
It felt like a punch to the gut. The only sound was the second hand ticking on the clock. My jaw clenched on its own; so did my fists. I had never wanted someone to lie to me so badly.
“And… now what?”
I swallowed hard. The paper trembled in my hands. I wanted to shred it into tiny pieces, throw it away, and erase it from my memory like a bad dream about a funeral. But you can’t get rid of this disease as easily as you can a piece of paper. Not that it would’ve changed anything.
“Care for HIV-positive patients is free. You’ll need to register and start treatment. If necessary, I can provide contacts for psychologists who can help you…”
She kept talking, emotionless and cold, like a theater mask frozen in one expression.
How many people like me did she see every day? How many times did she have to repeat this rehearsed speech?
Her lips moved, but I stared at her like a deaf man, and all I could see was one word, printed in bold italics for clarity.
Death is taking me by the hand.
And I don’t resist. I can feel her cold breath on my cheek and hear her quiet whisper repeating the same word over and over.
Positive.
Positive.
Positive.
“Any more questions?”
I shook my head.
You did everything you could, darling — I had no questions left for you.
The only one I wanted to ask was God:
How much time do I have left?