PREVIEW OF CHAPTER THREE: ASHES TO ASHES, DUST TO DUST

Anthony regained consciousness as they pulled into the E.R. Parking Lot but wished he hdn't,. He had pain everywhere, his heart and lungs seem,ed to be on steroids, and they were at THAT E.R. As Wayne and Homer were unloauding Anthony from the car, DR. Loyd came running out, holding up a hand. “No Medical Waste here,” Anthony heard the hated voice. “I've told you before.” “But. . .” Wayne said. “But,” Homer said. “Bu what? But nothing. Get him out of here.” DR. Loyd turned back towards the hospital. “But he's dying,” cried Wayne. “With immediate treatment, he wont make it..” As DR. Loyd paused, got out a stephiscope, turned and walked back to Anthony, in Anthony's eyes the Mask of “Pro Lie” was torn off of DR. Loyd's faceand Anthony sawwhat he truly was, but was no longer able to speak and so could not say it. DR. Loyd set the stephiscsccope to Anthony's chest and listeneda moment. Then he nodded and withrew. “You're right,” he said after a moment of thought. “He is dying.” He pulled a surene with a vial totallly filled with some bright red liquid and stuck it into Anthony's Chest. Anthony's felt his eyes go as wide as they could as he gazed into what he now saw DR. Loyd's eyes truly were and the vial drained its contents into his body but was still unable to articulate it. As he gazed into those cold, empty eyes as the vial finished draining, he fully saw who and what DR. Loyd truly was. He was. . . “There you go,” said DR. Loyd, problem solved. Suddenly, in a panic, Anthony realized that he had breathed out but not breathed in, and then suddenly his worldwen black.

LEFT ON THE TABLE, A COLLECTION

AUTHOR'S DISCLAIMER: AS A MAN WHO AS THE RESULT OF A CHILDHOOD BRAIN INJURY WAS UNABLE TO RETAIN PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE AFTER BECOMING TOO OLD TO BE COVERED THROUGH MY PARENTS UNTIL THIS JANUARY, THE FOLOWING SHORT STORIES REFLECT MY OPINION OF TOPOSITION TO THE NEW HEALTH CARE LAW AND THOSE WHO ASPOUSE SUCH OPOSION. AGAIN, THIS IS ONLY MY OPINION, AND I MAKE NO CLAIM OF OBJECTIVITY OR BEING OBJECTIVELY FACTUAL IN THESE, THEY REFLECT MY FEELINGS. AND NOW, WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, LEFT ON THE TABLE: BY MATTHEW LUCAS BECKETT LEFT ON THE TABLE The operation was at its critical mid point when the call came through. My Niece, Nicole, had been sick for two years. The Cancer had first appeared when she was twenty-eight, but at the time there had been nothing that could be done but watch and wait. Since she had been born with only one kidney, no Health Insurance Company would come near her even before the diagnosis, and certainly not after. “You should just accept your fate, Nick,” I tried to explain to her more than once. “Sometimes The Lord gives us a long life, and sometimes not. If He wanted you to have a long life, he wouldn't have made you subhuman by giving you just one kidney.” Even though that was true, saying it aloud had been a mistake. My sister had thrown me out and not let me back in her house for two months, and only then after an on my belly apology to Nicole, who had only just now, more than a year later, let me start calling her Nick, as her family and friends did, again. Then, of course, came the horrible health care reform law that said Insurance Companies could no longer discriminate against people like her, and even though I and every other Republican in the country had been working hard ever since to get it undone, we had not yet succeeded when she signed up first for Health Insurance. There had been signs, recently, of hope for repealing or at least defunding the awful idea, but these had not achieved the desired end before she had signed up for the operation to fight her cancer. I still thought, as a subhuman monster, she should just accept her fate and die, especially since the law might be undone any day now, but I kept my moth shut, for I knew what my bleeding heart liberal sister, Nick's mother, would do and say if I voiced this opinion. There had been weeks of waiting and preparing, of course. This was not an operation one just had done and then left, and each day those of us on the right side of Health Care Reform, firmly against it, got closer to winning. After all, if a client can not help a company earn a profit, the company should not be compelled to keep them on. But at last the blasted day came. We all went to the hospital, even me. We were all in the waiting room, waiting for who knew what. Suddenly, though, we all turned to The TV. News as we heard the words I'd been waiting for for a long time. “And in a stunningly fast maneuver, both Chambers of Congress have just overridden President Davison's veto of the law repealing his Landmark Justice In Health Care Act. So the law is gone, immediately, and everything reverts to what it was before.” Two minutes later,, the doctors came out. “What happened?” Screamed my sister. “You're too early. Did she die?” A doctor shook his head. “We legally had to stop, where we wee, when the call came through about the law. We were right at the critical point, but we cannot go on. You can go in and see her, but by law there is nothing more we can do.” Then they walked away, leaving my sister and her husband, for once, thankfully, speechless. When we made it to the operating room, we found Nick wide awake, wide open, and screaming. “What in the . . .?” she fought to find words. “'So called Justice in Health Care' was just undone, so the doctors had to stop, right where they were, by law,” I explain. “I told you that. . .” I stop at the looks on her parents' faces. If looks could kill. “So what now?!” she screamed in agony. “Now you get The Hell out of my Hospital and die somewhere else, Monster,” says the director of The Hospital, a former High Raking Republican Congressman whose name escapes me at the moment. “NOW.” We grab the screaming girl by feet and head and start to carry her out. Right when we come to the long hall that the doors lie at he other end of, however, Nick's screams cease. Looking down, we see her last breath leave her lungs and no more come in. “If you say that she deserved this or that this is as it should be, John,” my sister says. “I'll push you out that fifth floor window over there. They didn't even close her up. We'll have to bury her like this.” “You could cremate. . .” I start to say, but but then my brother-in-law's fist connects with my face and everything goes black. 'DANCING AT DEATH BY MATTHEW LUCAS BECKETT “The young and the healthy should not sign-up for so called 'Justice In Health Care'. After all, what is just about forcing you to buy something you don't want and will never need,” I said on my latest radio interview. Of course, my colleagues on the left had a different view. “Anyone can have a heath emergency at any time, Lucian,” they said. “And if Healthy People do not sign up, The Insurance Industry will still refuse to cover People With Preexisting Conditions and the whole effort will have been in vain and will collapse.” “Which means what to me?” I asked bluntly. “People who made bad choices earlier in life should pay for them later in life. That's the way things work.” They became so flustered at this that none of them had an immediate answer and so I walked away. To their consternation and my delight, my fellow People on The Right in every possible sense of the word and my message seemed to be working. “Very few signing up for Health Insurance under 'Justice In Health Care',” reported the evening news anchor near the end of March, 2014. “Causing a danger of the whole thing collapsing.” Of course, they paraded a bunch of people who had not been able to buy Health Insurance under the old system and would not be able to maintain insurance coverage and get their conditions treated if the new system collapsed and their sob stories across the airwaves, but to my surprised delight much of the public was too clever to fall for that. On the critical day at the end of March, there are not enough Healthy People signed up and the new system breaks down, thankfully. “People denied coverage prier to 'Justice In Health Care' having their newfound coverage taken away all across the country,” reported the News Anchors across the country. “Operations halted, and patients turned out of the hospital in mid stream or mid treatment.” “You see what your kind have done, Lucian,” says the Democratic Majority Leader of The House when reports of these, can they really even be called 'people' dying in droves begin to come in. “It's not my fault they made bad choices earlier in life,” I respond. “Many of them were born with these conditions, and got them through no fault of their own,” she screams at me. “Or made mistakes as very young children. You can't classify them as criminals, or put them in that same class, for that.” I walk away before she starts crying, as everyone on the left, male and female, always does about this. A month after the deadline, the last already in treatment person with a preexisting condition who had their treatment halted when the horrible new system collapsed dies, and in the following weeks others with preexisting conditions and other restrictions under the old and, thankfully, restored system, also begin to die. By the time of The 2014 August Recess, everyone who could not get Health Insurance on their own merits is dead, and so when I get off the plain, I begin dancing in the streets. Soon I see an old friend and former colleague and when I tell him “I'm dancing in the streets because every American unworthy of Health Insurance is now dead,” he joins me. Soon, a large group of us are dancing in the streets at the deaths of those who were unworthy of lie anyway, and when a woman cries that her son was born with only one kidney and so it wasn't his fault, we sing “Proud To Be An American” so loudly that she is drowned out and leaves. I hear of similar street dances elsewhere in the county, in fact everywhere in the country we Republicans all dance in the street at the deaths of the uninsurable the entire month of August, and when I have to fly back to Washington for other business, such as dismantling Medicaid, at the end of August, the dancing in the streets at the deaths of those unworthy of any Health Care at all are still going on. SHUTTING DOWN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO STOP HEALTH CARE REFORM IS NO BETTER THAN THIS AND THOSE WHO WOULD DO SO IN REALITY ARE NO BETTER THAN THOSE DANCING IN THE STREETS IN THIS STORY, IN FACT THEY ARE THOSE DANCING IN THE STREETS. THE TEAPARTY-DEATH UNMASKED BY MATTHEW LUCAS BECKETT. “I won't let People Like THAT have Health Insurance, even if I have to completely shut down the government to make it not happen,” whined Representative Joseph Street, stamping his feet on the floor and starting to cry. “I don't care if we've only got control of The House of Representatives, it's the Highway for Health Care Reform or for the Entire Federal Government.” The Speaker of The House sighed and tried yet again to explain. “If we shut down The Federal Government over this, it will hurt The Republican Party overall, because The American People will blame us. Besides, we'll never get it through The Senate and even then there aren't enough votes to override a veto.” “I DO'T CARE,” cried Mike Backhand, stamping feet and fists on the ground and whaling so loudly anyone nearby might hear. “If you want to stay Speaker, you'll bring our bill and no other to the floor.” That stopped Jacob Banner in his tracks. He'd waited his whole life to be Speaker of The House, and he didn't want to lose it so soon. “Very well,” he finally said. “We'll have a go at it.” The gavel came down. “The Bill to keep The Government open but repeal The. . .” he took a deep breath, hating the completely wrongheaded, bleeding heart liberal language, but it was the name of the bill, after all. “Justice In Health Care Bill is adopted. We will stand firm. We will not negotiate. We will never surrender. Send the bill to The Senate.” Of course, as predicted, The Senate refused to even consider a bill with this rider attached. Even many Republican Senators said that this was the wrong way to go about this. “Tell The Senate, it's either The Highway for Health Care Reform or for the whole Government,” screamed Representative Street, stamping his feet and crying again Of course, it at first was The Highway for The Government. Everything shut down. All airports were closed, roadwork went undone, even in mid project, Welfare and Social Security Checks were not sent out. Even the military shut down. This last, in light of a new wave of attacks overseas, is what a month into the shutdown compelled The Senate to adopt The House Bill and enabled both Chambers to Override The President's Veto. “I'm sorry, Sir,” the doctor suddenly said, in the middle of administering my kemo treatment. “Your Health Insurance has just revoked your coverage because of your childhood Brain Injury. Your treatment must end.” “But?” I stammered, stunned. “But what about Justice In Health Care? According to the new law, they can't. . .the preexisting conclusion is banned. . .” I start to stammer some more, but the doctor holds up a hand. “In light of the recent attacks overseas, The Senate adopted The House Bill in order to restart The Military, and an hour ago both Chambers Overrode The President's Veto. So people like you are no longer exempt from the laws of nature. Now I can go back to just treating my deserving patients. You might as well go home and hang yourself. You're going to die just the same or worse now anyway.” I do go home, to my now rejoicing Conservative Family. On the way, I contemplate running my car off the road and ending it, thus essentially following my Extremely Conservative Doctor's Advice, but then I decide against it. “No,,” I say aloud to the otherwise empty car. “My Conservative Family chose this. Let them see the consequences.” When I get home, my Brother-In-Law greets me. “Matt, I'm surprised you didn't kill yourself on the way home, in light of today's events.” “On your account,” I reply coolly. “I thought about it. But then I decided why deprive you and everyone else of the great show that is now coming up.” “Show?” says my sister excitedly, for even at thirty-eight she still gets excited about anything new on TV. “Yes,” I say. “Watching me die slowly and horribly from a cancer that could have been treated under the law that banned excluding those of us with preexisting conditions from The Health Insurance Market but now can not because it is undone,” I say with a fake smile that no one returns. Over the next few weeks, many of my friends with no way to now get their ailments treated do kill themselves, but I wait patiently for death to come to me, even as the cancer begins to eat me alive. “Uncle Matt,” my Nephew Will pleads one day. “If you won't kill yourself, at least stay in your room or cover yourself. I can't stand to look at your lesions..” “You can't stand to look at them?” I raise a quizzical eyebrow. “And how do you think I feel, possessing them? But you and your parents chose this last November at the ballet box, so you must see the results.” Three months after my treatment ended, however, I find that I can no longer get myself out of bed. My body is now covered in lesions, and on TV. Republicans are still singing their victory. “Since undoing The Health Care Law, Insurance Companies are making money again,” said The Speaker of The House on TV. the first day I could not even make it to the bedside pan for the bathroom. “Which is, after all, what companies are supposed to do.” There was a time when that would have at least prompted a shout from me, but now the most I can manage is to wet my pants. Every inch of my body is in pain, every hour of every day. I can't eat any more, so there's only one bathroom product that needs cleaning up now. My family stays out of my room as much as they can, but must pass it every time they enter or leave the house. Suddenly, as I hear them entering the house after I know not what, days and hours are all one blur of agony now, I feel immeasurable pain everywhere in my body. I somehow manage to give a cry and right as they all three rush in, I see the horses beneath them, and then I see The Fourth Horseman, Death, unmask himself on TV., ride straight at me, and then my sun and moon and starts forever shatter. BIT ROMNEY BY MATTHEW LUCAS BECKETT In the middle of September, all the big wigs in The Republican Party met in The Innermost Circle of Hell for a strategy session on a last ditch effort to stop Justice In Health Care from becoming a full reality. “What can we do?” cried Ed Gregbot, Attorney General of Texas, rolling on the hot coals and pounding his fists like the infant he was. “The Supreme Court ruled against the majority of our suit, and then we lost the election. Justice.gov will be up and running in two weeks, and there's nothing we can do about it. Wan, wan, wan.” “Calm down and stop acting like a baby,” snarled Mit Romney, his Pit Bull like face looking ready to bite. “No wonder our party keeps losing Nationwide Elections. Yes, we lost in court and at the ballot box, but there is still a way to keep subhumans with preexisting conditions from getting Health Insurance and so the industry prosperous, and if we pull it off they will remain in our back pockets forever.” “But you said last year you'd keep that part,” said Don Boner, Speaker of The House. “Traitor.” “Ah,” said Mit Romney. “That was what you would call a lie. More specifically, a ploy to dupe the uninsured into voting for me and win and then throw them back among the dogs they are, where they belong.” “So what is this 'other way'?” asked Ed Gregbot. “You hit the nail on the head, Ed,” said Mit Romney. “The website is to be up and running next month. The website is the key to this awful plan. The website is everything. If the website fails, the whole thing falls apart and goes away.” “So?” said Don Boner slowly. “So we make sure it does fail,” said Pit Bull Romney with a snarl on his face and rabid fire in his eyes. “But how?' asked Ed pointedly. “Even if we create a virus and get it on the website, we can not be sure that it will do what we want. Computer programs do unintended things all the time. So how can we be sure that this will work as we want it to.” “Because,” said Pit Bull Romney, pulling out some kind of strange electronic device. “A human virus will do what we want it to. Farewell, my friends. From now on I shall be known as Bit Romney.” Then he pressed a button on the device and both he and it vanished. A moment later a message appeared on the screen of Don Boner's computer. “I am inside the system. I am on my way to Justice.gov to disrupt, destroy and sabotage. When I am caught, I shall probably be deleted, so this is farewell,. But hopefully I'll ruin the Health Care chances of those that should not have it first. I'll see you all in Hell. Oh, that's right, we're already there.” Sanandra was excited. She'd had no Health Insurance at all in ten years. “All because of a mistake I made when I was a little girl, running out in the street, getting hit and getting a traumatic brain injury,” she had told anyone who would listen a thousand times since Justice In Health Care was enacted two years ago. “And now no Republican can stop me.” At midnight on October First, 2013, she sat at her computer and logged-on to Justice.gov. After a fair amount of reading and consideration, she settled on a plan that seemed to suit her needs and selected it. Right as she clicked on purchase, however, her computer buzzed and a pop-up window came up. “You have tried to perform an illegal function. Connection canceled.” Then not only did that website close, so did her home page and then her computer shut down and would not turn back on. “That's a virus,” she muttered. “I know enough about computers to know that's not just an overload response. I didn't think The Republicans would stoop that low, but I guess they did.” Bit Romney watched in satisfaction as computer after computer crashed on the Justice.gov website at his touch. Time flowed differently in this form, so he was not sure how long it took, but eventually he began to see messages that the website had crashed altogether. Then he moved into ensuring the efforts to repair it failed. Finally, with joy and relief, he saw the word get out on the internet that the whole Justice In Health Care Law was a massive failure and the old Money over People System was coming back. “As it should,” he said. Then he felt the line where he was dwelling being shut down and knew, with relief, that he was going back to Hell, to stay this time. THE UNCLEAN BRAIN. BY MATTHEW LUCAS BECKETT. I was born in the late summer of 2002, even though by then I had already been alive for nearly nine years. Born not out of the warmth of thee womb, but out of the cold of a coma. I was told that it was a car crash, although I do not remember the crash, nor have I ever remembered anything from before the crash, except perhaps the theme song from a Saturday morning cartoon. Originally, they just said that I had had a head injury, although later in my life they came out with the formal, more medical sounding term, Traumatic Brain Injury. Whatever you call it, I had to start over from square one. Fortunately, for the most part, I was a fast learner. Over the next five years, I had a lot of doctors appointments and all kinds of therapy; speech, physical, occupational, cognitive, etc. Fortunately, my parents health insurance understood the meaning of the term and was willing ti help pay for it. But then .when my dad changed jobs and so our insurance company changed . . “Dear MR. and MRS. Cruiz, we are happy to grant the two of you full coverage under our plan. However, because of your daughter Martha's Traumatic Brain Injury back in 2002, her preexisting condition makes her ineligible for any coverage at all. . .” I didn't hear the rest of the letter. It didn't matter. It was the kid on the playground in fourth grade who called me a retard because I talked funny all over again. Not that it was a total surprise. That was not the first time I had heard that term, it was just with the Health Insurance my parents had already had when I got injured, it was not a “preexisting” condition. What did shock me was my uncle's reaction to hearing about this. “Well, Matt,” he said. “People with unclean brains like you should not have Health Insurance. It is only for Healthy People, and you've been sick for the past six years.  Now they want to say insurance businesses have to cover people like you. Well, I won't have it. Take this.” He hands me a cow bell on a necklace. I stare in confusion. “Put it around your neck,,” he sys. “Whenever you go out. As you approach people, bang it and shout 'unclean brain', so that no one else gets near you and catches your disease.” “Traumatic Brain Injury is not communicable, Uncle Mike,” I protest. “So they say, Matt,” he replies. “But the fact that your parents let you continue to live with them after your release from the hospital, medical waste that you are, suggests otherwise. But wear this and use it whenever you go out if you want to live to see fifteen, Matt.” I stare at him a long time, hoping that he will say he is just kidding, because he is quite a kidder, but there is nothing but hate in his face. “OK,” I say at last. “I'll do this. But from now on, it's Martha to you. Only family and friends call me Matt, and with this you and I are neither.” So, for the next two months, despite my parents objections, every time I go out, I wear Uncle Mike's Bell, bang it and shout “Unclean Brain. Unclean Brain.” A few people move aside as if from a disease, but most people just look at me like I'm crazy, which often causes them to move aside as well. But then. .. “If we want to make the movie, we need to go, right now,” says my mom. We rush out the door, race to the theater, get our tickets and find our seats. As we leave two and a half hours later, however, Uncle Mike is waiting, with a knife in his hand. “Where is your bell, Martha?” he demands. “We didn't have time for that ridiculous thing, Mike. . .” my dad begins, but before he can go farther Uncle Mike's knife is in my chest and everything goes black. AT LAST I HAVE FOUND THE WORDS. I have been trying since the first Wednesday in 2008, to put to words how the people who say “repeal and replace” or “Obamacare” in a derisive tone effect me. Until now, however, I have been unsuccessful in dully achieving this end. Yesterday's short story 'The Unclean Brain' however, does achieve this. Martha's Uncle Mike is not unlike those who say these things are in my mind. True, no one I know has ever actually told me to wear a cow bell and so on, but they think those of us with preexisting conditions' lives are worth no more than Uncle Mike thinks Martha's is in the story. Nor does any Republican in this country, so no Republican is alone in this. They all really think that those of us with health “issues” should be singled out in some way, marked as inferior beings, and then either rounded up and put in pins or in some other way set apart and marked as “different” and “inferior” from the rest of society. As far as I'm concerned, this includes every Republican in my family (so-called family), (I'll give my ninety year old grandma a pass, but only her) and my circle of so-called friends. They can say that this is not so, but actions speak louder than words, and their actions say that is is true. If this is truly not the case, let their actions change. Beyond that, I will let yesterday;s story speak for itself, for in truth I am a much better story teller than speech writer anyway. I am sorry if all of this seems unreasonable, but it is how I feel and how anti Health Care Reform talk makes me feel.