In seven years time, I ve gained 50 pounds, I ve gotten two jobs, gotten married. I ve done all the things that people with AIDS think that they can t do. Just because you re diagnosed with HIV doesn t mean that you ve got to go somewhere and lay down and wait to die. But for Clay and other patients, the disease won t go away. It is always there, ticking inside them.
Scientists hear the ticking, too.
They know that HIV is not a disease of the past. It is not a disease for someone else, somewhere else. It is a disease of here and now. It shows in the quickness of his step, a subtle glance at his watch if a visitor stays too long. And in his words.