Title: Stewart
From the Book: More Monologues They Haven’t Heard
Roger Karshner
ISBN: 0-9611792-2-8
Description: Stewart, a young, terminal AIDS patient, unloads his anger.
Yes, I’m bitter. And why shouldn’t I be? How would you feel? How would you like to give it up, all of this…your life? Christ I haven’t even lived. Death is something that happens to other people, not you. You don’t consider it; it’s out of the question, an abstract thing.
I don’t want to die. I don’t want to leave you and the sky, the trees…people. You think about all this, you know. You think about how it’ll be without you around and how things will be still going on like always and how you’re not going to be part of it. That’s one of the tragedies of it. You’re gone and you’re nothing but an occasional memory or an old photo in a shoebox in someone’s closet.
You know you’re the first to die. You know this, and it makes sense. And you know there’s nothing you can do anyway. You repeat this logic to yourself over and over, try to sell yourself. But you don’t buy it.
Right now, I don’t know if I’ll be able to face death with dignity or not. Right not I’m afraid. And I’m damned mad.