Invading a World of Grey …
beautiful day and the air was fresh and full of promise. He smiled as he walked
up to the hospital. His boss had made him go to get a checkup which made him
laugh a bit. “I’m perfectly better. That fall only left me a bit bruised and
those bruises faded shortly after.” Still he respected his boss so he went
anyways. After being poked and prodded the young man sat, waiting for his
results. He slouched down in the chair thinking and dreaming about a promotion
at work, which would give him enough money to build a better home for his
parents and younger brothers and sisters. They would have a feast to honor him.
He smiled as he saw his favorite dishes unfold before him. “Ahem…” The doctor
cleared his throat the Young man sat up quickly. “Your injury is completely
healed…” The Doctor said. The young man smiled… “But we found something else…”
the young man was puzzled. “Your congestion and those sores you thought were
bug bites were actually caused by the HIV…” The young man heard nothing else…
It felt like he had been kicked in the gut… He stumbled out the door and down
the steps. The sunlight hit is face as he made it outside… He looked around and
saw the sunny world pulled away from him… the color drained from the sky, and
from the trees. He felt no warmth from the sun, no coolness from the breeze…
nothing… His world was gone… all that was before him was a grey oblivion. And
at the end of it… he shuddered to think…
there was once something so much more was all I could see in his eyes as we
crouched on the floor to speak with him. He was sitting on a straw mat in the
hallway because he could not afford a bed. He had just found out three days
before that he had HIV and had been slowly dying from it for the past three
years. His skin covered with scars from it the war the disease had waged with
his body. As my teammate and our friend spoke with the man only 2 years younger
than me, I could not tear my gaze away from his eyes… Grey… literally that was
all I could see. It was as thought I were looking across the remnants of a
fallen city. A world in ruins that had long lay silent… I realized that I was
face to face with despair… the absence of hope. It was then that I realized the
enormity of the gift I carried.
man and my friends had ended. I looked into his fallen world once more before
standing, and smiled… there in the middle of his fallen grey world was a flash
of color… The gift had been given…hope was beginning to grow once more…