An elephant in the fridge

A guy wakes up thirsty in the middle of the night, walks sleepily to his kitchen and opens the fridge. Incredibly, there is an elephant inside. As the guy stands there blinking in disbelief, the elephant opens its mouth and says: "fact".

This is my life, full of facts that I try to ignore and that I can't believe are happening. I am about to go and present to the head of my institution, I am going to Spain in 10 days or so, and will not only present to 80 people or so, but also meet P's family again, alone this time and bearing some kind of gift, I have a boyfriend who loves me and is a commitment-phobe, I have parents that I see once, maybe twice or thrice a year, and a brother that I talk to about as frequently, I have an ex who is dying, whether from malaria or HIV is unclear, and I myself contracted HIV from an hygenic and unnecessary medical procedure which I shouldn't have even had to undergo because I should have never used the faulty contraceptives that were taken off the shelves while I was having morning sickness and waiting for the procedure that would infect me 9 years ago, and I would not have been infected if I had it at the hospital where I was born, as scheduled, if the assholes from the health authorities hadn't gone on strike again, which wouldn't have happened if the much bigger assholes sitting in government woud have given them enough money to make a reasonable living, and I can never prove this, because so many years have passed since then, and I left and wandered and am now living in a country that I don't identify with , working at a strange job which is all about appearance and nothing about substance, and rain is pouring outside but still I have to get on my small bicycle and cycle through this crazy weather and stand in front of a bunch of people and talk about something that I couldn't give a rat's ass about as though I know what the hell it is I am talking about, but at least they will be friendly, and try not to feel sad that my boyfriend doesn't wish me luck, and all these strange things in my life, they are as inescapable and factual as the elephant in the refridgarator. I can blink as much as I want, but the facts are what they are.

The other day I went to the dental hygenist, who, displaying a typical Dutch mix of thoroughness, systemacity and mindblowing slowness, spent one hour poking around the gums of my upper jaw (the bottom jaw is schedulaed sometime towards the summer), and there was a lot of blood, since I haven't has this done in ages. I came with a reference letter from my very odd dentist saying "Mevrouw XX is HIV positieve" and with a concern about how I would be treated, since doing this job has a higher infection risk than the taking of blood samples. But the Iranian technician was very nice and polite ad respectful, and I was also untra-polite, using u instead of jij, hoping that until my next appointment, the nuclear war will not break out, that it will never break out, because that will be one fact that I for so many reasons will not be able to handle, it freaks me out, and between a tangible elephant and a host of invisible demons, there is no room whatsoever left in my fridge.