There she goes with that goddamn camera again!

It's been three weeks since I stopped regressing. I suppose I should be grateful; many people who contract AR virus end up worse than me. At least I can sit up on my own, and I've been left with at least a little mobility.

"Smile, Susan!" she suggests cheerily.

I don't feel much like smiling, and ignore her completely. Gloria is well intentioned, but her incessant perkiness was difficult to tolerable before I became an ARV victim, now that I'm in her constant care, it has simply become more than I can bear.

"Are you poopy, Suzy?" she asks, wrinkling her nose. "Haven't we gone over this? You need to tell me when you need changed, or you'll get a rash." She pushes me back on the grass as she draws the ever-present diaper bag near. "Relax, this will only take a minute."

She pulls at the snaps at my crotch, and then I hear the distinctive sound of the tape being pulled away form the disposable diaper. "Oh, a BIG poopy!" she giggles, as she lifts my legs and begins wiping the smelly mess from my bottom.

As she works, I force myself to think of something else, anything to take my mind away from the fact that my sister-in-law is changing my dirty diaper in the middle of a busy city park.

Suddenly, I recall a dinner party at Gloria and Charlie's house last spring, before I was diagnosed with the virus. Although my brother Charlie and I have always been the best of buddies, I always found Gloria a bit hard to take. She was nice enough; too nice actually. I found her bubbly personality and overwhelming sweetness extremely annoying.

"So tell me again, Susan, what exactly does a Systems Analyst do?" she asked, sipping her chardonnay.

I struggled with a way to describe my work in terms that she'd understand. Although Gloria was college educated, she hadn't worked since she married my brother ten years ago. "I, uh, work on computers Gloria."

"Isn't that special?" she gushed. "Any thoughts of settling down and starting a family?"

"None whatsoever. I'm not exactly the motherly type," I replied. "Can you imagine me having to deal with diapers?"

"I suppose not" Her eyes brimmed with tears. "Excuse me." She turned and walked up the stairs to their bedroom.

Was I being insensitive? I knew that Gloria and Charlie had been trying to conceive for several years with no success. Lately they'd invested significant amounts of money into fertility treatments. My callous remark angered my brother who was upset with me for weeks.

"That HAS to feel better," Gloria announced, pulling me to a sitting position in the grass. She folded the soiled diaper up into a neat little triangle, and threw it in a nearby garbage can. "We're meeting your brother for lunch. Are we hungry?"

She is relentless in her attempts to engage me in conversation. I am quite capable of speech, but my new voice reminds me of a cartoon character and only adds, if possible, to my humiliation. Also, she asks me to repeat every thing that I say. I am sure that it is hard to understand me most of the time. It is difficult to speak distinctly when you have no teeth.

Knowing that my lunch will consist of a jar of tepid, tasteless baby food spooned into my mouth at breakneck speed, I shake my head back and forth in response to her question.

"Oh, well. You can watch us eat then."

She lifts me effortlessly and places me in the stroller. As Gloria pushes me along, adults look down and smile at me, unaware that I'm anything more than an adorable baby wearing a big blue hat. I see men walking briskly, with a briefcase in one hand and a Wall Street Journal under the other. I look up at the women, dressed in smart outfits that mark them as professionals, as they walk to their offices.

I'm beginning to understand that I'll never be a part of that world again. I start to appreciate that my life has become a never-ending chain of diaper changes, naps, and baths at the hands of an insipid, shallow woman that I've learned to despise.

I want to scream. The horror of my existence is revealed to me in stark clarity. Instead of screaming, I tightly grasp the sides of my stroller, and stare directly forward. We plunge toward the restaurant as men and women look down at the sad little baby the stroller; the baby girl with torrents of salty tears rolling down both chubby cheeks.


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