by Charles Rich
NOTE: The following is a chapter from my book, "The Living Proof: Confessions of an AIDS survivor".
“The world is like a ride at an amusement park, and when you choose to go on the ride, you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it's very brightly colored and it's very loud and it's fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question: Is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, 'Hey! don't worry, don't be afraid, ever, because, this is just a ride.' And we ... kill those people. Ha ha, 'Shut him up. We have a lot invested in this ride. Shut him up. Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account and my family. This just has to be real.' It's just a ride – but we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? ...And let the demons run amok? Jesus murdered; Martin Luther King murdered; Malcolm X murdered; Gandhi murdered; John Lennon murdered; Reagan ... wounded. But it doesn't matter because it's just a ride. And we can change it anytime we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. A choice, right now, between fear and love.” – Bill Hicks, Revelations
In the previous chapter (How I “got” HIV), I intended the word “got” in the title to have a double meaning. On the one hand, I wanted to explain my theory on why I began to test false positive in 1998 (which I did,) but I also wanted to explain how I “got” (i.e. “comprehended”) what it really means to be “HIV-positive”. Once the chapter was written, however, I realized that I'd forgotten to include the latter subject, and I was unable to find a way to include it without the addition feeling tacked-on.
