100 Love Letters I'll Never Send (The Test) part 1 (c) 2017
Sometimes in the mid 1990's:
Never a good feeling to be there. To protect the privacy the windows are tinted outside. To distract yourself you might find yourself playing scenarios in your head of why they are there in the Health Department. Strangers who you’ll never see again (hopefully) are better than seeing people you know. People you are surely going to tell everyone that they saw you there. Then the rumors that your infected. “Guess who I saw in the health department…”
Yet there is no escape of the unavoidable doom as you wait for them to call your number. There’s all sorts of government health sanctioned posters on the wall. ‘This is what smoking does,’ with the two faces by each other. One is of healthy skin face. The other face that is by it is riddled with age. Makes the skin look like leather. ‘He said he loves me,’ with the face of progression of abuse on it. Starts with the black eye. Five stages later an almost recognizable face. There is also the anti drug stuff. I didn’t bother to read that. The people on the poster looked ten or twenty years older than they actually were; for example, thirty year olds looking like sixty year olds. Surely, I deserved such a fate. I should have gone to church. Yea right like I ever went to church before. I was reaching for anything to save me; and I had not even had blood drawn.
Never a good feeling to be there. To protect the privacy the windows are tinted outside. To distract yourself you might find yourself playing scenarios in your head of why they are there in the Health Department. Strangers who you’ll never see again (hopefully) are better than seeing people you know. People you are surely going to tell everyone that they saw you there. Then the rumors that your infected. “Guess who I saw in the health department…”
Yet there is no escape of the unavoidable doom as you wait for them to call your number. There’s all sorts of government health sanctioned posters on the wall. ‘This is what smoking does,’ with the two faces by each other. One is of healthy skin face. The other face that is by it is riddled with age. Makes the skin look like leather. ‘He said he loves me,’ with the face of progression of abuse on it. Starts with the black eye. Five stages later an almost recognizable face. There is also the anti drug stuff. I didn’t bother to read that. The people on the poster looked ten or twenty years older than they actually were; for example, thirty year olds looking like sixty year olds. Surely, I deserved such a fate. I should have gone to church. Yea right like I ever went to church before. I was reaching for anything to save me; and I had not even had blood drawn.
"Number 33." They guide me down.
You don’t remember how you got back out front. “You forgot
to fill this out.” They hand you your doomed checklist that nominates you for
std’s. May you have nothing to worry about because you’ve only had sex with one partner. Unfortunately, you remember what
they told you in high school, "When you have sex with someone you’re having sex
with everyone they had sex with."
The questionnaire makes you more paranoid. Had about fifty questions on it. How many people have
you slept with? Do you drink? Do you use drugs? When was the last time you were
tested?-Then they give a list of diseases you can put a check by.
You start to have those condemning thoughts again “Damn I am being
punished by God. If I hadn’t done the drugs I probably wouldn’t have had sex.
If I wouldn’t have had sex I wouldn’t be dying of aids. Now that I have aids I
am sure to go to hell.”
The nurse walks up to you. With a serious tone in her voice
she says, “Come with me.” You follow her to her office. Your eyes are about to
burst, like a cloud a storm cloud.
In her office she tells you, “Sit down.” She proceeds to
look at your questionnaire and verifies some of the information. Then she goes
through other papers. Ten minutes have passed. She puts the papers away and
says, “The results of your H.I.V. std tests were…”
to be continued...
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