Red's Red

Woh. Red just knocked on my door. “You got any bandages?”
“Yeah.” I wish I also had rubber gloves.
He fell while on a ladder attempting to open his skylight, grabbing onto glass before he tumbled onto some plants.
I tend to be more than mildly repulsed by the sight of others’ bloody wounds – odd considering the ease and frequency with which I confront my own –
but this, of course, was different. Petrifying. He does, afterall, have HIV.
I knew the day would come. Red is a ridiculously talented artist; his living room mimics “Where the Wild Things Are” and his bedroom Van Gogh's “Starry Night” with brilliantly represented planets. But his forte is the creation of gorgeous pieces comprised of window frames dressed in broken glass and mirror.
I peeled open band aid packages, and passed the bandages to his non-bloody fingers, still never coming in contact with his skin. I opened the triple antibiotic, squirting some on those same two non-contaminating fingers. I yelped a bit when a drop of blood oozed from the chunk of skin dangling from his heel. My breath was slow and heavy.
”This is scary” I uttered, looking him in the eye with a faint smile. I never came in contact with his skin, let alone blood. I washed my extremities with anti-bacterial soap afterwards.
I honored every movement with awe, showered myself in peace and respect.
Moments later I opened the doorway to find Red spraying & wiping down the hallway. “The virus lives a very short while outside the body, but this is bleach water anyway…. Time to go see what damage I did upstairs. Landed on some plants….” He hobbled off.
I wanted to help him upstairs, too. But couldn’t. Instead I bent down and sprayed the bleach water on my hands and feet, stuck between feeling like I actually just risked something and I’m being silly and unnecessarily scared and didn’t do enough.
“By the way” he stuck his head around the corner. “You were a great nurse.”
“Yeah, right! I opened packages.”
“No really. You stayed very calm, and that’s all you could do.”
There are a few times in my life when death has breathed heavy on my neck.
This was not one of them.
At the forefront of my memory is when I fell - head-first – down a mine shaft. I was alone in a side canyon off of Havasupai (a part of Grand Canyon), had no flashlight, and new there was just enough light see all the walls of this shaft straight through to the final back wall. I just didn’t count on not seeing the floor. How I ended up falling head first still seems a mystery against physics. But how I managed to stop myself, cling to the pitch black vertical rock walls surrounding me, and climb out while still up-side is an even greater mystery. I laid on the dirt floor of the shaft panting for a few brief moments, then allowed my feet to take my dazed mind back to my friends and our campgournd, where I proceeded to wash my wounds in the river and cry and thank God for my life.
Obviously, far more extreme than today’s scenario. But some similar senses wash over me now: completely drained, with a new illumination gleaning over this strange journey of life.