once upon a time that is an alternate now. from the diary of an old friend

I found it particularly hard to examine young girls my age, who rarely recognized me as a peer although I easily saw them in the light of girlfriends. By what cruel twist of luck had I been born as me, and they as them? I could just as easily have been born in Sub-Saharan Africa, and then it would have been me, undressing on that cold table, infected with a virus that would slowly strip me of my dignity and humanity. And maybe, in an alternate universe, it would have been her, awkwardly fiddling with her stethoscope, staring at me through eyes that brimmed with clumsy pity.