Marco Fiorentino 

Professor MacMillin 
MMC 3104C ‐B52 Writing Strategies 
November 15, 2010 
The Idea of Being New 
 

The Bad Sip 

  The first sensation that came to his mind was that of reluctance to comply with her request. 

After all the lies, the cheating, the dishonor; he was not in the mood to accept her mother’s request 

to have tea, especially five years after the incident. 

  The rules were set by him, a complicated young man, and the middle‐aged woman accepted 

them as if they were the words of a deity. It was at her coffee shop where they found themselves for 

the first time after five years. He was on his way to see a friend who happens to work at the same 

building where she has her small coffee shop. His garments were noticed by her because they 

changed compared to the once he would wear years ago, as he sported Italian suede shoes, a pair of 

nice trousers, a dressing shirt and a jacket: quite far from what she supposed. She quickly fixed her 

hair, untucked her t‐shirt over her jeans, so she wouldn’t look bad. But she did: the time over her 

shoulders forced her wardrobe to change drastically to fit the budget of someone who lost 

everything she had. 

When he entered her coffee shop, she immediately recognized him. “Hello, Marco,” she 

said. “How are you doing?” She smiled arrogantly, looking in to his solid brown eyes. “I’m fine, and 

yourself?”  He replied with a poker face. “I’m great,” she replied quickly and left the word hanging to 

see if he would finally ask that question. “Good. A tea please, with a small cup of non‐fat milk on the 

side,” he said tearing her plan apart. There was that awful lapse of time, where both would look at 

each other as if they were on a staring contest.  

His tenacious eyes were the window of a serene spirit, the one that once was injured and 

learned to heal slowly and painfully with the sand of time. She found no reason to keep on looking 
and once having depleted her resources to keep playing that staring game, she looked down and 

back to his eyes, attacking this time with her prose. “You know, Lucila was asking for you the other 

day,” she said, trying to plunge a dagger into his heart which was already coated on steel. The 

silence he proposed in response to her statement was more than enough for a normal situation. 

However after looking at the board behind her, when he turned his eyes to meet hers, she came 

back to push that dagger even more in order to break his armor. “I think that this is time for you 

guys to meet and talk,” she marked. 

He looked seriously to his left, like denying the situation. When he came back, his eyes had a 

big ‘no’ written on his pupils. “What you think madame, with all due respect, doesn’t concern me. I 

believe that there’s nothing else to say on both parts: nothing has been left unsaid,” he sentenced. 

“Marco, don’t judge her like that, perhaps that’s why she left you, because you judged her actions so 

hardly that even today she feels threatened,” she claimed. “Sandra, you are trying to defend the 

indefensible. Listen, I don’t have time for this type of issue right now; I have things to do,” he said. 

“Are you telling me that you don’t want to talk to her? Are you telling me that you gave up?” she 

asked, pressuring him for a response. “It’s been more than five years, let it go. There’s nothing we 

can do to get our time back. There’s nothing we can do to recover what we’ve lost. It’s been five 

years of reasoning, understanding, revising. I don’t really think that we need to revise a closed case, 

Sandra,” he sentenced. Her response to that last statement was more aggressive than the last one: 

she wanted another chance even when she knew she didn’t have it. “Well, perhaps you thought that 

you knew everything about that case, but there’s new evidence that might change your sentence,” 

she argued. But the new evidence as she cited, wasn’t enough to cover what happened before. 

It all started at another coffee shop named Piacere, which in Italian means ‘pleasure’, where 

he was working at, wearing a khaki uniform t‐shirt with black pants. It was a Sunday afternoon when 

she showed up to the coffee shop with her husband. She started to ask him several questions as if 

she would be an FBI agent. She left giving him a generous tip. 
 The next Sunday of that week, she showed up to the place with her daughter, Lucila. After a 

very nerve breaking conversation, she left her business card on the counter. He once described this 

movement as the “best tip I have ever received” but at that time he was unaware of the damages 

that card would cause him. Dating at a ferocious pace, and being introduced to her whole family, he 

thought that a serious relationship was growing out of that situation. It was something growing in 

deed, but it was just not serious at least on her behalf. She managed to convince that young man, 

selling him mirrors that would break at the first glance.  

A month in the relationship, after a night of excesses, she confessed to him that she was 

dating a person on a long distance relationship. She cried dry tears, begging him to understand her 

situation, but after he did she stabbed him in the back. In order to break up with the other subject, 

she had to travel to Argentina. He promised that he’d be waiting for her in Miami. However, after 

the trip, she came back to Miami but never back to him. This crushed his heart in the worst way, and 

that was why he was not keen on giving her, her mother or anyone that could speak on her behalf, a 

chance to reach his heart again. 

After affirming that new evidence would give him a new perspective on the matter in order 

to open her case back and deal with it, she stared at him with her watery hazel eyes. She was looking 

for a minimal chance to make things better for him and her daughter. He had, at that precise time, 

his moment of weakness. He accepted to talk to her on the condition that she would come alone to 

meet him at a nearby Starbucks after five. He left his card on the counter, grabbed his tea and left 

the place. 

That same afternoon, when he arrived to the Starbucks, he ordered a coffee and sat on one 

of the wooden chairs in order to wait for her to arrive. It seemed to him that she would take forever. 

His coffee had no flavor whatsoever; no matter how much sugar he would put in it. No matter how 

much he would drink that coffee, he’d still be thirsty for more. Then, after a bad sip of it, he opened 

his eyes to find himself back in bed. It was four in the morning. 
 That same day, after he woke up, he knew that he had to go to meet up with his friend at 

that building that afternoon.  However, despite the experience he had that night, he paid no mind 

about it. 

When he entered her coffee shop, she immediately recognized him. “Hello, Marco,” she 

said. “How are you doing?” She smiled arrogantly, looking in to his solid brown eyes. 
Marco Fiorentino
Professor Mac Millin
MMC 3104C -B52 Writing Strategies
December 4, 2010
The Stigma Stops With Me

Ignorance and Fear

When I approached the door of the auditorium, where Dee Cruz was conducting her lecture,
I knew what I would find. I am not referring to Dee Cruz, no. I am referring to the ignorance and fear
that I have regarding AIDS.

I am 26, and even though I conducted different blood tests in my life, I had never tested
myself specifically for AIDS. For some reason, every time I wanted to test myself, something
different would occur, and it would frustrate my attempt. However, that afternoon, I fully
comprehended that it’s important to get tested regularly.

If there’s something that terrifies me about AIDS, it is not the disease itself. It is not the
person who carries the disease as well, as I patiently explained to Cruz. I am terrified of the test
results to be positive, even though they have no reason to be. My girlfriend tested herself and it
came out negative. Besides, I perform a blood analysis annually and all my values are perfect. In fact,
I’m a hypochondriac, and even the most minuscule problem will be a life-or-death matter for me.

Every time I watch Cruz’s videos, the only thing that I can imagine is if I would be in her
place. The mental image of the situation frightens me even more. This mental image shows me
realistically how valiant I am: I can stand physical pain; I can confront any man; but AIDS, that’s
something that you can’t handle. Therefore, prevention is the best solution to the problem, because
at this moment is the only solution that exists.

When I approached the subject, I tried to find a way to relate to Cruz’s problem, but her case
is really one of a kind. I don’t really think that I would be able to react the same way to a terminal
disease. It is quite incredible that she has been able to survive the disease up until today without
medication, because 17 years is just too much for a person to resist. However, what amazes me is
that despite her resistance, the cure has not been found.

Convincing everyone to get tested is today a good way of prevention, but it demands a lot of
time and effort. I hope that before she has to convince the whole world, researchers put their best
so they can save people’s life with a vaccine.