Since I haven't bought groceries in over a week, I make do with rice and a jar of sweet-sour sauce. The radio plays Beethoven's first symphony.

I ponder my conversation with Emile. I've told him more than I usually do. He'll probably never find or even look for me, but he could and I don't like to share my life. What's the point if their lives are as ephemeral as flies? The ones I share interests with are always the most difficult. They can ask questions that dig deeper than the superficial and I don't like lying – too dangerous to slip up.

Those conversations are also the most engaging. If this was my life, maybe Emile and I would have studied together. Maybe we would have been friends. Worked together even. I reckon that, when he was a student around 1990, Aids was still a hot topic.

I remember when the news of a strange new illness in the US first came to Europe. I never understood why it was so strange, but Emile mentioned opportunistic infections and I guess it makes sense they didn't find a correlation if the actual cause of death could differ so much and healthy young men were contracting rare diseases.

After all, I'm showing symptoms that are not always related to each other, I've been perfectly healthy up to last week, and I can't find a clear cause either – at least not one that I know and could recognise. Although there might be a window period, so maybe I should test myself again.

However, I can't fathom what I could possibly have, why my immune system is failing me. Maybe I have an illness that affects my immune system. Actually, that could very well be possible, were it not that most autoimmune diseases are hereditary. Some are not, but the only that comes to mind at this moment is Aids. And I can't have Aids. It is an STD and I have never slept with anyone. Or could it be transferred in another way as well?

I turn off the stove. Best to look it up before it slips my mind. I start up my laptop. It takes its time. An anxious current runs through my veins, under and over my skin, in my head.

Aids affects white blood cells. My white blood cells are constantly replenished. If I had Aids, my immune system would weaken and strengthen in a constant cycle. Oh, God. There is no treatment for Aids. What am I going to do?

I open Google. 'How can I get HIV?' I scroll for a Belgian website. 'Bodily fluids' is marked in bold. The list starts with 'sperm, blood and pus'. Of course. I'm screwed. When did I drink blood that tasted strange? I can't remember. Would I even be able to taste it?

I click through the site for tests. I might still be wrong, but I've got a gut feeling and it's not a good one. I can go to the doctor or the hospital to get tested, but that's out of the question for me. Luckily, there are self-test packages. I order one immediately. It'll take a few days, but I'm pretty sure I'm still in the window period anyway.

I close my laptop. My food has cooled down in the twenty minutes I've left it. I eat in a hurry because now's the ideal time to read up on HIV. It won't help me on a medical level, but I should know the basics.

***

Apparently, there are four phases. I think I'm in the second one, the asymptomatic phase, because I'm not sick anymore. When I read about Post Exposure Prophylaxis, I straighten up, but I'm too late. It's definitely been longer than seventy-two hours.

What am I going to do? Everything is prescribed, requires a doctor, an examination. I can't risk that. I don't want to lie on a table. I don't want a doctor to draw my blood. I don't want questions. I don't want to be someone's research object. Not again.

But I can't live like this either. I have a little respite, but after the asymptomatic phase comes the symptomatic phase, and then full-blown Aids, and opportunistic infections, and death. If I didn't have to suffer through all that to get to the end, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. But I'd have to, and I don't know if I could. But if I don't find a way to acquire the right medication without a doctor, I'll have no choice. And even then. Self-medicating is a huge risk.

Let's think. Who has access to HIV medication? Pharmacists, but I can hardly break in. Who else? People with HIV, of course, but I can't smell them and certainly not break into random houses. I can't even open a door without a key.

Someone I know then. But I don't know anyone with HIV. I only associate with my students and my colleagues, but they won't divulge such personal information when I'm nothing but an acquaintance. Charles, but I can't sneak around in his apartment without arousing suspicion. If he even has HIV.

Emile is looking for a cure, but he isn't seropositive. Though, didn't he say his daughter is? She'll have access to the right antiretrovirals. I know him, he knows me, I know where he lives. I could get him to invite me in and take a part of her doses. If his daughter still lives at home, it might be difficult to be alone – it will be hard anyway – but I can actually work with that.