There's a man I know of;
Who lived down the street,
He'd often sit there by the pavement:
quiet,
He was clothed with loneliness,
One could feel the agony and dejection eminating from him,
I see how everyone looks at him:
With contempt, and disgust,
He was like a plague,
Infectious, destructive and deadly.

He was like the very personification of death,
It was as if pestilence had taken the shape of man,
We all feared him,
I wondered why,
Why was so despised by the masses.
Everyone who was ever approached by the man cringed,
As one would cringe at a pungent and fetid beggar.
He was a beggar,
He begged for our attention and care.

We, the children mocked and taunted him.
Innocent children who did not understand the ways of this world.
The elders, hypocrites that they were, warned us from such coarse and loutish behaviour.
We paid no heed....

And then one day he was no more,
Like a candle that has burnt out he faded away, dead...
Life, his miserable life, had been mercifully perhaps plucked out of him...
Was it maybe a relief for him?

Later on we did learn that the man had contracted a disease,
A disease known as HIV/AIDS which slowly devours one's body,
Rendering it useless.
The elders had feared that we, the people, may also be infected by this sordid disease,
And had thus prevented us from ever approaching the man.

The man had lived a simple life,
We had cursed him, made his life, already a pain, into a torment,
We had alienated a man, a living man, in need of care and love...

Today we live on,
We breathe,
We enjoy the gifts given to us by the gods,
But still, still I remember that man,
I still see his empty eyes, hopeless, haunting me;


People, these patients, these people infected by HIV/AIDS,
Are humans like us, breathing, living,
No amount of malady or blight will take their humanity away,
It our duty to care and help them,
Alleviate their suffering, and give them the attention they deserve.
I hope that you, my friend reading this, will not make the same horrendous error I made...
© solum_orbis