As I sat alone in my youth, night after night, my flights of fancy often gave way to nightmarish visions. I had it in my mind that some horrible disease was eating me slowly from the inside out. I would double over with anguish, convinced that I had cancer or some disorder of the nervous system.

At some point I became convinced that I had A.I.D.S. I don't remember why I thought this, or if I had any symptoms.

These were still the days of freewheeling sexual activity and I was an active participant. I consumed sex like my drugs to calm my state of savage anxiety.

One night, I simply concluded that I had contracted AIDS. I went into a state of numbing depression for weeks. I recall a comforting daydream which I would conjure to soften my state of retched fear. The dream was that I could be taken out of my sick body and placed into a life support machine. The dream of being buried in a safe warm machine was a way to temporarily escape my thoughts of death.

I never did contract AIDS However, I came to know those that did ... and those that died from it.

I still often wonder what things may be growing within me ... I wonder what will eventually kill me. I wish I could become a head in an immortal machine ... Then it would be my choice to die, if and when I became bored with life.