Tale of a Bug Chaser

Neon lights from outside seeped in from the blinds and striped his shadow. He lay stretched out on his bed in the darkened room holding a book above him-The Sufferings of Young Werther. The book was coined as the world’s first bestseller, a typical story of an intelligent young man who gave his life in the name of Love. The plot is classic, but it happens as often as sunsets and often as tragic. The Bug Chaser’s story is no different from young Werther’s.

That was the night. He finally had to admit to the guy he has been dating for several weeks that he was a bug chaser. The response was always either a hit or miss. This time, the once potential Gift Giver-or so the bug chaser had thought-looked at the Bug Chaser as one would look at a mass murder. His expression then warped to one of pity and transformed to grief. He turned around, walked out taut with his gift-the HIV virus.

The Bug Chaser has been seeking a Gift Giver for over six months already. It was not as easy as it seemed. The ratio of Bug Chasers wanting to be infected with the virus and the Gift Givers willing to infect others are significantly imbalanced. Mostly because the infected chasers do not turn into givers. Even with modern medicine, the infection can be classified, barely, as a chronic manageable disease. No one with a heart would want to purposely let another suffer of such cruel destructive pain. Also, the Givers die out.

And so Chaser watched his giver leave. He went back to his room and picked up his favorite book, he has read it so many times that he can recite parts of it. He tonelessly and systematically whispered the words of young Werther while lying in the dark. He rewound himself a year back. Memories broke the barricades he had built in his head and flooded his vision. Scenes played on mute, the silence made them even more unbearable. He watched himself seated across from his love, test results in hand, shoulders shook disjointedly, with hurt glared from his eyes. HIV positive. His boyfriend started to get up from the sofa; his fingers ringed his car keys on the coffee table. Chaser snatched his boyfriend’s elbow to halt any further movement. He started to twist away, rogue splattered on Chaser’s knuckles. The silenced thud echoed endlessly in his head. He has never punched anyone before.

Perhaps it took a bit of self-destructive madness coupled with tunnel vision to convert the Bug Chaser to what he is. Well-intentioned excuses for goodbye from his boyfriend did not satisfy. It included the vital and most significant: to keep him alive. No. To Chaser, sharing the vile infection was the deepest form of intimacy. The Bug is bond that would keep them together. He would do anything to keep his boyfriend with him. Death is not too high of a price to pay for love, not for young Werther, not for Chaser. Of course, this he never told anyone else.

His concerned friends and family demanded reasons on what coaxed him to destroy himself. It was saddening for an intelligent young man, who is well educated, to have a cult-like fervor for something so dangerous. Tweak the situation a bit, and the practice of bug chasing can be called attempted suicide. The anxiety of unknown chances of infection, the alienation from the community, and the rush of heightened arousal are all defenses for Chaser. Everyone has things they need to tell themselves.

His eyes flickered tiredly, and he closed the book. He heaved several deep breaths; there was a feeling in his chest that felt like a laugh. Lies that he had told to turn himself into something he is not, just to hold on to someone that has been turned to ashes and dust. It is dauntless and tragic.