1. Michael Asmus
Mobius English 7
Dear Michelle,
I found this while going through Michael’s possessions. It seems that he wrote it in the
last few days before AIDS took his life. I thought you might be interested.
It’s almost over. The pain will be gone soon. I’m not sure if
I’m nervous or just relieved. The counselor that my parents found for
me suggested that I write about my experiences of the past few years,
that it might help me accept the end when it comes. I might as well. I
don’t have much else to do these days.
It started with a dentist in Florida. I was on summer
vacation there eight years ago, and I chipped one of my front teeth
while playing in the water with two of my friends, Alex and June. As I
had a few weeks of vacation left, my parents decided that I should get
the tooth fixed by a local dentist. One of my father’s friends in
Florida suggested Dr. David J. Acer. My mother agreed, and we made an
appointment. My dad drove me to the dentist’s office a few days later.
The office was fairly close, but the drive was still unpleasant
because it went through a heavily industrialized area. The air smelled
like burning sewage, and there was no way to shut it out because the
cloth top of the old Volkswagen convertible we were borrowing was
missing. The trip took about twenty minutes. When we arrived, the
receptionist told us that Dr. Acer would be out soon. He came out and
introduced himself a few minutes later. He was a tall, good looking
man. He seemed nice, if a bit distant. He discussed fishing with my
dad for a while before actually getting around to the subject at hand.
My father described the problem, and I showed Dr. Acer the tooth. He
brought me back to his operating room (if that’s what it’s called)
after a cursory examination. He got to work immediately. The operation
did not hurt nearly as much as I had expected, but then again, I had
been given medicine to make my mouth numb. The Dr. Acer was finished

2. fixing the tooth after about a half hour. Looking satisfied, he gave
me a mirror, so that I could look at my newly repaired tooth. It
looked like it had never been broken, save for a nearly invisible line
at the edge of the break. I thanked him, and we all said goodbye, and
my father took me home. For a while, I was happy.
It took three weeks for the first symptoms to appear. I
began to suffer from symptoms of acute infection, specifically a
fever, a rash, muscle pain, and persistent headaches. These symptoms
were, as usual for HIV/AIDS, misdiagnosed, mainly because they were
looked at individually rather than as a disease package. They only
persisted for about two weeks, before what I later learned was the
second stage of infection started. This stage, called “chronic
infection,” is mainly characterized by swollen lymph nodes. It was
uncomfortable for me, but certainly not deadly. At this point, my
parents decided that something was definitely wrong with me, and they
took me to get checked again. This time the results were accurate. All
of us were totally shocked when the diagnosis came back. My dad just
went silent, and my mom actually started crying. I just stared at the
doctor. I couldn’t believe it. The idea simply would not register in
my mind. I was sure that I had not done anything that would give me
the disease, and I thought that they must have been mistaken. My
father asked if they were sure. The doctor said that unless it was a
completely unknown disease, he was absolutely sure that I had HIV. My
mom asked if we could have some privacy, and the doctor left the room.
My parents then started desperately questioning me about how I could
possibly have gotten the disease. My mom was crying and trying to talk
at the same time, and my dad was very intense and seemed almost angry.
They were both talking at once, then my dad was yelling, then looking
away, and then my mom was pleading. I have no memory of what they were
saying. I was still staring at the door in shock. After about two
minutes, my dad actually slapped me. Hard.
“Look at me!” he yelled.
Then I was staring at him, holding my cheek, with my mouth open.
I remember shaking my head. The rest of the day passed by with me

3. still in a daze. I don’t remember much else, but I know that my
parents chose my treatment combination before we left the hospital. I
sort of withdrew into myself for a week, barely talking to anyone and
zoning out when no one was actually asking me a question. It wasn’t
that my mind was racing too fast to pay attention to the outside
world; it was just frozen in a state of disbelief.
It took me about a week after I came back to the present to
convince my parents that I had not secretly had unprotected sex with
someone. They could not really deal with me having the disease, and
instead convinced themselves and everyone they knew that I had a brain
tumor, not HIV. I went along with it. It was easier to explain that
way. At this point I had no idea how much time I had left, and I tried
to make the best of whatever time was available. I started going on
nature walks with my mom, and biking with some of my friends. I went
on family trips to Hawaii, Italy, and France, despite the fact that I
never had time to learn the languages in the latter two. Knowing that
the average life expectancy for a person with newly-diagnosed HIV is
twenty-four years, I went to college after I finished high school,
deciding that eighteen years with a college degree under my belt would
be better than twenty-two without it. It turns out that I’m one of the
unlucky ones. I didn’t get nearly that long.
Seven years ago, I found out on the internet that there was a
dentist in Florida who had HIV/AIDS and infected some of his patients
with it. I was curious when I heard this, because I had never found a
good reason how I had been infected with the disease. It turned out
that the dentist on the news was Dr. David Acer, the very same dentist
I had gone to in Florida. Acer had died of AIDS earlier that year. I
learned that the other victims had been tested and found that they had
the same strain of the virus that Acer had, so I went to the hospital
and had them test me. The results placed me as a sixth victim. Despite
the realization that my contracting the disease was not my fault, my
parents continued to pass off the disease as a brain tumor.
I got out of college two years ago, and I found a good job
in sales in a company in downtown San Rafael. It paid well, and I

4. actually enjoyed it. I’d been coping pretty well with my illness,
taking my medicine regularly. I felt like I would live a long time.
At least, I felt that way until I suddenly contracted some kind of
cold. It didn’t seem all that serious, but I started getting worried
after it persisted for five days. I went to the doctor, and found
out that my disease had moved on to AIDS. The doctor there gave me
about two years, if I was lucky. That was six months ago. I’m in the
hospital now, with TB, PML, a bunch of other diseases I can’t spell or
pronounce, and probably a few that I don’t even know about. I haven’t
been able to be close to my family for a few weeks because of the TB.
They’ll probably have to disinfect this laptop if they ever plan to
take it out of my room. Actually, they’ll probably disinfect anything
I even print with it, just in case I somehow transmitted the disease
through the internet. Computer virus. Heh. I wonder if HIV/AIDS can
mutate into one of those...
Anyway, the doctors say that I have a week, at best, now. I
wouldn’t give myself that long. All these diseases... I think that I
might go insane from medication and isolation before they finally
manage to kill me. Either that, or I’ll spend my last few days with my
mind so high in the clouds that I won’t be able to see. I took off
most of my pain meds so that I would be able to write this coherently,
but I don’t think I’ll be able to go much longer. Actually, I think I
might have passed the edge of coherency a while ago... I’m going to
sleep now. Maybe I’ll write more tomorrow. Assuming I wake up... I
hope I get to see my mom again.
Michael was twenty-three years old when he died. His life ended in Marin General
Hospital, where he was born.
Best regards,
Michael Vakarian