Helen Parks: I’ve lost too many friends in too short a time. It gets stronger with each one, closer to home. I haven’t been sleeping too well.

I get out of bed and look at the moon. I just stand there. I don’t know why I do that. I go back to bed but can’t sleep. I thought I’d have a longer time. Now I think the time is shorter.

Death is hard to think about, harder to face. The thought of death is slippery, difficult to focus on, surrounded by a cloud of pain and fear. At the same time, the thought is irrepressible; it is impossible to truly ig­nore. No one with HIV infection ignores the thought of death altogether. “No matter how positive I am, there’s a lingering dark cloud,” said Alan Madison. “It’s tick, tick—your time is running out. It’s not like one day it’s on your mind, the next day it’s not. You think a lot about how it might end.”