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Gene – Here is part of the first chapter. Hope it capture’s your interest. Everything is true.I was reading my diary and recalling my thoughts and the details of that day. The firstchapter is in the hospital and then my move to solitary confinement. After Chapter 1 Iwill go back to the beginning and how I got here. AIDS drug, cancer research etc.... Thetrial is 5 years away. I will finish chapter 1 by Wednesday.When I started writing this thing all the memories started to come back, and I felt I needto say it all. You’ll tell me. This is a new experience for me.Mike
 
Gene, every thing I am writing you comes from notes in my diary. I am using those tohelp bring back the feelings and circumstances at the time. Hope it works.
Window to My SoulChapter I Day 11Thursday September 12 1996 4 amThe Nameless Man
It was the dark and the nameless man lay there. Mouth open, his forlorn eyes staringaimlessly towards the sky. Well, in the present circumstances that wasn’t quite right.There no sky inside the Ministry of Interior Police hospital. There were windows. A fact I paid little attention to at the time and appreciated even less. The guards wouldn’t let thenameless man or me go anywhere near them so who cared. Beside the view was shit. Iwould later regret not looking out those windows more often. It would be years before Ihad another chance to ever look out of a window again. And nearly a decade before Iwould even have a chance at seeing the world moving beyond that glass. My life was tostand frozen in time.As for the forlorn look on my nameless friend’s face, well what else could I expect from acorpse? I’d be none to happy either. Although a few weeks ago in a German prisonhospital I was doing my damnedest to get ahead of this guy. He beat me to it. Whatever.The corpse in front of me could care less about my problems or any of those he had justleft behind. In fact he didn’t care much about anything right now except starting todecompose into compost. Thankfully I wouldn’t be around to watch or smell it, at least Ihoped not.A few hours earlier my nameless friend had been alive. And he had obviously cared agreat deal about staying that way. How much he cared was only too obvious. The deadgive away, if you pardon the pun, his expression of abject terror and the constant crying.You know the kind you see in heavy Hollywood movies and afterwards you tell your friends how real the actor made it look. Well, trust me it’s far from real. Men and womenconsciously caught in Death’s and not ready for him are terrified in a way that aHollywood actor can never imitate. There are raw complex emotions involved. A terror sovisceral and specific as to defy description. Oh you can try and write about it. But the best story teller in the world, which I am far from, won’t be able to do the terror of thedying justice. Its one of those things you have to experience from inside to understand.Problem is there are no dress rehearsals and no second chance. You get to do it only once,and then you forget everything. And I mean everything and everyone.Even documentaries on the dying can’t do the dying justice. A movie won’t capture thesmells or tense electricity of being in the same room with someone who has no faith andis not about to succumb quietly to infinity. It has a taste all its own. You’re an observer and that’s all. And dying a prelude to hell.
 
I’m not saying everyone faces death terrified. Of course not. There’s the hero’s death.Where dying is not unexpected. Usually sudden, and rarely do heroes have enough timeto reflect deeply if at all on anything more than should I do it or shouldn’t I? Few haveenough time to profoundly consider is going to happen to them or to reflect for long thein pained faces of those they may leave behind. The dead have no regrets, but the livingand dying are full of them. Besides heroes, whether they admit it or not, are alwaysconvinced that the honor and selflessness of their act gives some special dispensationfrom God or some higher force. Few, if any hero ever saw death as being finite. SO nomatter how impossible things appear the hero considers death as most probable but notinevitable, and definitely not “the end”. There’s also another neat trick, and its one fewknown about. Death always hides his face from the hero. He stays in the shadows, aspecter. As long as he’s only an apparition then he’s not real and there’s no reason to beafraid of him and what’s to come. It’s probably a good thing to. Otherwise we would havehad far fewer heroes in man’s short history than we have.Let’s face it, the nameless corpse and I both believe as young men we could face Deathand do it fearlessly. I personally placed my life at risk on more occasions than I now careto remember. All young men believe that to attempt something heroic is only natural andright. It only the old who are afraid of Death and want to cling to life. Cowards? No.Smart? Yes. Death is not someone you want to invite to your any party sooner than youhave to. Besides he will show up sooner or later without an invitation.But of all the kinds of deaths that really irk me it’s the quasi-heroic or martyrdom death.You know the one. It’s where someone with a terminal disease faces his or her inevitableend with the courage and emotional stamina worthy of Mel Gibson’s Christ. They accepttheir fate and quietly go to their death. It’s all over TV. Dying men, women and evenchildren going on national television to make these up beat testimonials about how theylived a full life, or their faith and the love of their family gives them courage to face theend calmly. Besides they know they are going to a better place.I know you know the ones the “My pain is terrible…I am on drugs all the time” and “Ican’t face a life of pain” blah, blah and blah. They cry a little but manage to holdthemselves together. Pretty impressive shit. All of them claim to have looked into the faceof death and to be unafraid. Some even claim to have found peace in the idea of death. Ionce made the same claims for myself. Fortunately for me I was in solitary and had onlymyself to talk to in that 15 x 8 foot cell. I didn’t have to make any public retraction or gothrough with a suicide just to show I wasn’t full of shit. Apparently some folks prefer toignore the fact Christ knew before his death that he would be resurrected in both bodyand spirit. From what I gather he had it from a good source, the man Himself. I reallydoubt that anyone else can be so sure.Well my lifeless friend here was at least honest about how he felt. No false heroism hereor attempts at stoicism. He came in kicking and screaming and went out the same way.Openly and unashamedly terrified of dying.
Wednesday
of 00

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