‘Sitting on a park bench with a friend’ prompt’
You are sitting on a park bench with a close friend. It is a beautiful day, one that should be the template for each day. Your friend looks up and says …
“I have something to tell you. I have HIV.”
It is 1995. We are sitting in the urban courtyard outside our offices in an iconic Chicago high rise. It is summer and we are beautiful. We are tan and fit and young, sporting edgy haircuts and white teeth. Wearing the right shoes and clothes with ease. We are on break from our jobs — jobs much coveted by everyone in the industry. Up until seconds ago I thought we owned the future.
We should be talking about weekend plans and gossiping about our insane coworkers. That’s what this perfect template of a day is meant for.
I’m asking him for details. When? How? Who else knows? What will you do?
It’s late enough in the AIDS epidemic to be scared but in time for the new drug cocktail. Hope bubbles slowly to the surface and the blue sky inspires. I tell him “it’s not a death sentence anymore.”
This is more for myself.
Then an anger boils up. A cloud shifts to obscure the sun. I am pissed this has happened to him. A cliché settling on my only male gay friend.
My anger reflects off me and lands on the masses people passing by. It’s a brilliant day, and like all weatherless days in Chicago, everyone needs to drink it in and save the nectar for later when The Hawk comes.
How dare they breeze by when a drama is playing out, a world upturned as they scurry off to get coffee or run errands?
Any other beautiful day we’d be doing the same. But here we are. Bad news doesn’t wait for a gloom.
Each week my spouse and I write short essays to share with each other — under 300 words, submitted within 24 hours, and written off of a prompt.
