I did want adventure. I didn’t want to prescribe Ritalin to ADHD kids and tell fat old men to get more exercise. I wanted to go to the heart of Africa. Cradling villages of starving, disease-ridden children. Reserving no luxuries for myself. We would share everything: “Here. This syringe is dirty. Careful.” Engaging the deadliest disease of all. The AIDS virus. The beauty of it’s DNA sequence, to be so extraordinarily complex without sacrificing elegance. The mystery. The danger. The romance as it waltzes with my white blood cells inside me. “Give it to me. Inject it,” I’d say. To be destroyed so efficiently. But I settled for less.