A Terrible Beginning to an End

A Terrible Beginning to an End

It’s a feeling of dread.  It devours me bit by bit.  My mind rushes with the worst possibilities, and will stop only for the answer.  A cold sweat drips from me, my body strained and tightened into a vice-like clench.  My heart beats along with the fast-paced rhythm of my thoughts.  A lump in my throat and fire in my gut signify my fear.  I close my eyes.  The world spins around me, as I quiver in a bubble.  My head and my heart, both ablaze with questions waiting for the acquittal.  Feeling as if centuries had past, she returns only minutes later, harshly aglow with the unnatural light of fluorescent bulbs.  I would like just to turn away, run; anything to avoid the fact staring me in the face.  A shaky, frost-bitten hand lifts up the sheet to my eyes. The world comes to a halt and I am thrown into a black abyss.  In one word I float, in one word I am doomed and convicted:  “positive.”  I, and everything else, stop.  The world starts off again, slowly.  I am stuck; forever in a stale presence and being.  How long will it last?  How long will I feel this way?  How long do I have until the end?  She gave me a pamphlet, like a brochure welcoming me to death.  On the cover:  “A Guide to Dealing with HIV/AIDS.”  My heart dissolved.  This is real.