The Way We Live Now

The way we live now is a heartwrenching short story about the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. The story takes place in Upscale New York, where the AIDS epidemic really hit hard at the beginning of the crisis. The story is surrounding one man whose nameis not mentioned, who is lying in a bed sick and dying. At the beginning of the story, the man denies that hew has AIDS, putting off doctor’s appointments and avoiding blood tests altogether. “he didn’t call for an appointment with his doctor, according to Greg, because he was managing to keep on working at more or less the same rhythm…” (Sontag,1) This denial was common at the beginning of the epidemic, simply because people did not want to acknowledge that they had contracted this awful disease. The man’s friends try to keep him happy and comfortable while he is hospitalized, bringing him the things he likes to his room. By doing this his friends hope that they can keep his spirits up and inspire him to keep on fighting the disease. “I want to bring him a whole raft of stuff, besides chocolate and licorice, what else. Jelly beans, Quentin said.” (Sontag, 3) After a while, disturbingly, the man’s friends begin referring to him in the past tense as his condition grew more and more severe, as if he had already passed away, and some of his friends began reflecting on his poor life choices- practicing unsafe sex, smoking cigarettes, etc. Others quipped back, saying that the disease of AIDS was incredibly new, and that there was no way they could know that thewy needed to be protecting themselves from it. By the end of the story, the man remarks on how some days he feels so good that he thinks that he can beat out the disease, while others he feels like it has taught him valuable lessons. We can see things like this in today’s society in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic. People making poor choices like not following guidelines to socially distance and wear masks, people wanting comforts, people in fear because of how ill they feel. This has a shocking amount of similarity to the pandemic we face today.