Oliver Benjamin
“It’s your medical report from the clinic”
I remembered the tests that were done on me when I first
arrived at the kibbutz. It was pretty sure I was in good health, but I
became justifiably concerned.
“Well, what does it say?”
“Jake,” she paused and clasped her hands together in her lap.
Then she gave it to me, “it’s the result of your blood test.”
My heart missed a beat, reappearing later in the form of a blow
to the head. Apparently, those goddamn Hebrew letters were the only
thing standing between me and utter doom.
“Anat,what does it say?” I screamed.
“Jake, the test says that you are HIV positive. I’m very sorry.”
The cryptic letters crumbled underneath me. I was falling.
There was an immense buzzing in my ears. Through the noise, I
tried to make out what Anat was saying, but it was no use. The room
reeled around me and I began to feel sick. I was certain that my face
was beet red, and felt as if I was about to have a brain hemorrhage. I
saw Anat’s mouth moving, but I had no idea what she was saying. I
was dimly aware that I was nodding my head in agreement to her
instructions and suggestions, but the microphone was off—the
previous message had badly damaged the circuits. The only thing I
knew was that I definitely had to get out of there immediately. I was
unable to move. My fate was all there, down on paper in that
ridiculous archaic Hebrew script like the fucking ten
commandments, announcing to me, and me alone “THOU SHALT
NOT LIVE.”
It was funny. All my life I was fascinated with the odds. I entered
every Reader’s Clearing House Sweepstakes, I bought lottery tickets,
I played the scratch games at fast-food restaurants, and each time I
secretly hoped that I could be the one, special, chosen, the one
previously faceless individual that could rise above statistical
mediocrity and claim fate as his ally. But I never won. Not once. Sure,
a side of fries now and then, but never anything big. Well, Jake, you
finally won something big, didn’t you? You beat the odds and won an
all-expenses paid trip to the great beyond. What could be bigger than
that? I pulled the arm of the slot machine with the hopes of a new life,
and all I got was three grim reapers. Reaper! Reaper! Reaper!
Congratulations. In the Monopoly Game of life, you didn’t land on a
hotel, a hotel landed on you. Go directly to your maker, do not pass
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