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How Shall We Then Live?
"After ruling our thoughts and our decisions about life and death
for nearly two thousand years, the traditional Western ethic has collapsed."
On this triumphant note, Professor Peter Singer began his milestone book, Rethinking Life and Death. His book proudly and shamelessly conveys an attitude of revolutionary confidence that brings to mind another atheistic iconoclast, Derek Humphry, when he said, "We are trying to overturn 2,000 years of Christian tradition." Attorney George J. Felos, a nationally recognized expert in right-to-die cases, is best known for the landmark case that helped establish an individual's constitutional right to refuse or have withdrawn unwanted medical treatment. This case known as Guardianship of Browning, and the most widely-known case of Terri Schiavo. Mr. Felos was featured on NBC's Dateline program and was propelled into the upper echelons of the Culture of Death movement. Felos has appeared on numerous television and radio programs including CBS's Early Show, CNN's Burden of Proof, Daybreak and Greenfield at Large, Court TV's Pros and Cons, Inside Edition, The Kathy Fountain Show, and NPR's All Things Considered. He has also presented seminars and debated end-of-life issues for various professional, civic and religious groups, and leads meditation and personal growth workshops.
Felos is the creator of the book, Meditation for Lawyers, the first-of-its-kind instructional course accredited for continuing legal education. His article by the same name has been published and posted in various journals. Felos graduated from Boston University School of Law, has practiced in Pinellas County since 1978, and is a founding member of the National Legal Advisors Committee on Choice in Dying, and served as Board Chair of The Hospice of the Florida Sun coast, the largest non-profit Hospice in the world. Together, those mentioned here represent a mere thimbleful of deceit from with the ocean of depravity in what is the culture of death in America.
If you’ve ever gone into a bank in America, and all of us have, you must have noticed just how quiet and serene that place was? There seems to be a reverence which rivals that found in most churches. The reason for such a display of piety is because in the unassuming financial institutions across America is the country’s fastest, biggest and most powerful religion, the worship of the Almighty Dollar. It can be truly stated that God is now green in America. Because of this devotion to this pious paper and pristine plastic, the nation has been plunged into the abyss of despair for the lives of the unborn, the infirm and the aged. Unborn children do not participate to a thriving economy, so their demise is of no avail. Those of us who cannot work, cannot walk, cannot feed ourselves are unproductive citizens, so we can be discarded as so-much rubbish if they cannot demonstrate some utility to the masses. “I’ll dare those old folks live so long and continue to drain our coffers of the funds that could be better spent studying the sex lives of the sperm whale!” “Should they not just get out of the way and die so there is a bigger piece of the pie for everyone else?” Does this sound like lunacy? Quite possibly, such words are reminiscent of a page or two out of Orwell’s 1984 or Huxley’s Brave New World? In reality, these unspeakable new age “Values” are found throughout the pages of yesterday’s and today’s newspapers, all throughout the country! Fitting examples are inexhaustible all around us. Perverted pedophiles are abducting and raping our children at an all-time alarming rate and they receive sentences that allow them to return back on the streets in incredibly short amounts of time only to again steal our children out of their beds and finally kill them. Yet, if you are the chairman of Enron or WorldCom and you can expect anything between 25 to 200 years. That should not be seen as shocking. After all, the offering up of our unborn and growing children, our disabled and bedridden citizens and the early demise of our elderly pales in comparison to any premeditated sacrilege against the Green God of America.
Is all life worth living? Do the old, unborn, the infirmed or mentally ill have no social value? The proposed and not so secret response from the brokers of the culture of death is a resounding, “NO!” In fact, it is easy to see that the whole catalyst of the death culture is centered around one overriding maxim purporting that population reduction must be accomplished without delay and by any means. Such culture transforming issues as abortion and such organizations as Planned Parenthood have led the way in what is considered to have changed the thinking of Main Street America in what now seems a permanently calloused culture and is considered as groundbreaking and deepening into a six-foot social grave. Though abortion is by far the most widely debated issue facing traditionally valued Americans, there are many movements afoot that are not even so quietly laying their framework of treachery and social engineering that also use the premise of population control as their dictum. The Euthanasia movement is now gaining great expanses of mental ground in the American psyche. The old, infirm and mentally impaired and their “safe”, “dignified” and “self-determined” death is considered one of the biggest pieces of the diabolical picture that is even now being sketched by the workers of woe within the Culture of Death. Matters such as the homosexual movement, assisted suicide, animal rights vs. human Rights, the environments movement and the dangers of socialized medicine in America and the financial constraints such a program will place on the keepers of the very life you cherish seem easy to isolate and identify within the society at large. Yet, it still remains that even the most docile and sanitized amongst us still require ears that hear and eyes that see.
Obviously, the raising of children in families that are so out of the natural order of things i.e. a mommy and a daddy will cause great concern and confusion for children and will cause them great concern about why they are so different from other families. Of course having a mommy and a daddy is preferable to having two mommies or two daddies. The whole issue of gay marriage fits into a nicely bundled, not so hidden, idea that it is necessary to reduce the world's population. Look at the issues that work all together to accomplish this task.
Though I am absolutely for planning a family and for the use of contraception, I would never support the use of abortion as a means of reducing the world's births. Margaret Sangor, the Founder of Planned Parenthood said herself, and I quote, "The most merciful thing a family does for one of its infant children is to kill it." She propagated wiping out the African American race and was a huge supporter of Hitler's views and today, her organization, with these goals, is supported even with federal dollars. George Felos, as pointed out earlier, is the leading lawyer for encouraging assisted suicide and euthanasia of the infirm, the elderly on the basis of some vague standard of the quality of life. Based on such a standard, would it not be logical to simply walk down the streets of our cities and rid the poor homeless of their lives devoid of quality? I know you do not think so, and nor do I, but is that not where such views eventually lead; to a place where no one has the right of self-determined longevity unless they possess some utility other than life itself? One need only us their mind to go beyond what your teachers taught us and let humanity speak to us and follow the statements to their logical end result.
The same package of death is applied to the growing support for gay marriage. There can be no population growth in such "families." This is not a conspiracy theory. Such conspiracy stories are germinated and hatched in the dark and hidden from public view and eventually disseminated piecemeal to the general public. These issues are not secretive in the least. They are out in the open for all to hear and research without the slightest bit of difficulty. I have learned these things as I have researched material in these areas for this novel. I want gays to live, children to grow and the elderly to have a long lives to bless their families. I want marriage to go on and to bless the mothers and fathers as they hold their first child in their arms. I support the spending of as much money as is required to find a cure for aides and to teach gays in America and Europe and heterosexuals in Africa where the disease is far from being mainly a "gay" disease to protect themselves. I want to see the world continue to possess a sanity where it is even worth having a child who can grow into a healthy, strong, values-based person..
Perhaps you feel these words are far fetched, but I have been around the world in 34 countries and I can say of a truth that the family and life itself is at risk by those who no longer hold anything sacred or of lasting value. The story you are about to invest your time in shall speak its mind and challenge you in many different ways concerning the dangers facing us. We fight to preserve a nation from terrorism, but if this is what we are fighting to preserve, would you lift a finger in the defense of an obtuse and reprobate society as that which I have just described?
Therefore, I wish to dedicate this book to all the Theresa Shiavos of America whose unfortunate lives have run headlong into the merciless, unrelenting will of the false god in whom increasing numbers of common people trust in this country today. This is not a book written against the liberals of this country. Nor is it a vindication of the political right, of which I have always considered myself one. In fact, it is an indictment of both sides of the massive green beast that runs roughshod over friend and foe alike. The real purpose of this book is to reveal the true nature of the culture of death that has come to pervade over every major decision we face. I will investigate many of the movements that have made America more the land of the freak and the slave than the free and the brave. It is not written with pride and bitterness. Rather, it has been penned to warn a great nation that a land is nothing without the care and mercy shown to its less fortunate. It is submitted to you to underscore that the measure of a great nation is not in its GNP or its S&P but in its TLC. On the contrary, the words written here have been tempered with fear and trembling for the nation I love. The indisputable facts laid out herein are written in shameful disgust over the failure of the moral base of America to adequately speak out and stand up to be counted. No great nation can long endure under the strains of the obtuse who seek to systematically destroy those whom our nation had so long defended.
America threw its youngest and brightest into WWII to fight an intolerable tyrant and the idea that only the State could decide who was worthy of life. We fought and died to bring Adolph Hitler and his regime to an utter end because of his disrespect and utter disregard for life. Now, today in America we have Judges seated in a leather chair behind some large desk not making choices to help someone live but rather deciding who should die. America stood tall and brave against the forces of Communism because of just such an evil philosophy as this, which religiously and progressively marched its people to a dreaded drum right to the very precipice of death and defeated; a defeat based on our commitment to freedom and life. Yet, today in America, are we really better than those we destroyed? Are we really different? Perhaps the Nazi movement and the Communist ideals are not so much dead as they are renamed and recast in more benign and more beguiling silhouettes; wrapped up in a tattered swath of red white and blue and empowered by a document that no more represents nor resembles the original constitution of the United States of America than did the Communist Manifesto or Mao’s Little Red Book!
The diabolical forces at work in America must be rendered powerless. We cannot stop them from speaking out, lest we defeat the very freedom we seek to preserve, but we must always be vigilant and ready to work against them by recognizing the forces at work, and the masters they serve, which make up America’s emerging culture of death, lest none of us have any quality of life. It is imperative that we take another look and reaffirm the words of Philosopher, Francis Schaeffer when he said that there is no life that is not worth living. If we believe that, then we should pose ourselves the same question he asked, how shall we then live?
Chapter One
Nothing was as lonely or as peculiar as the sound of emptiness. That was always compounded by a hollow edifice’s echoes emanating from some night cleaning crew going about their business when everyone was supposed to have already gone off to do their duty or to do their mischief for the night. It was almost always so in this now dormant enclave that may not have bustled as much as those that housed the other two branches of government, but nevertheless, this Romanesque structure that stood as a monument of fairness and prudence had its own assertive commotion. Yet, there had probably never been a day like the one that had just concluded for Supreme Court Justice Laurence Saul. He had stayed way past his government prescribed supreme bedtime. He had not exactly burned the midnight oil.
He had not sat at his large and ornate bureau either with exaggeratedly obese volumes thrown open in search of some precedent that would explain tomorrow’s world-trembling action or which could subdue the overly stretched nerves in the center of his head that had produced an excruciating, throbbing headache. No, such research would have been for his aides and law clerks to do, anyway. In fact, Justice Saul had not opened any books at all. What he needed, what he sought could not be found in books. His research was in his mind and a further eighteen inches from the top of his supreme head down to his parched heart; an organ that had beat without the slightest interest in its innermost unscrupulous nature that he had not quite unwittingly nurtured over so many years. Like a lesion that had expanded its horizons by virtue of having picked at its scab constantly, the meat of Saul’s heart had hardened, toughened until it had rendered itself into a not so fine consistency of cowhide. Yet, tonight, despite his attempts to get beyond feeling were in vain, and he knew it. He could not seem to get beyond his most earnest desires to render a ruling based on the inflated volumes of law that graced the shelves which prescribed past actions and decisions for which his current rendering would have no precedent.
His other eight colleges had seemed to have come down quite evenly on one side or the other.
Yet, he had allowed himself to be placed in his current plight; a situation that would have given many a Supreme Court Justice glee at having received their own fifteen minutes of fame to express themselves in unforgettable Jurisprudent Babel for which their was no precedent. Yet, tonight, Laurence Saul was down to the tender meat of his throbbing organ. This deed, this all encompassing verdict demanded a very non-lawyer-like searching of the now leathery organ that beat in his chest. There would be no legal cha-cha’s or any swinging your lawful partner do-see-do on this one, which was how he had always described the process in his mind. Therefore, neither lean nor mean, books just would not do. Instead, the supreme judge had just sat in his office with only a couple of nightlights burning and stared out into space contemplating his pronouncement.
“What would it do to my Grandkids? What of my legacy? What would I write in my memoires? How would it affect my family…me?”
There was also of course, just barely making the list of unanswerable questions with at least a smattering of consequence.
“What it would do to the future of the nation?”
He just looked intently into nothing and resolved himself as to his best course of action and in turn, talked himself right out of it time and time again. He heard the large clock on his mantelpiece chime loudly 12 echoing times throughout the office. It gave him a chill and reminded him that even prominence and stature had its burdens. He pressed a button on his phone.
“Yes, Justice Saul.”
“Peter, could you have my driver at the gate in ten minutes?”
“Yes, sir. Working late sir? Big day for you tomorrow?”
“Indeed, a big day it shall be. I just needed some time alone to reflect.”
”Oh, you’re not alone. You’re never alone.” a voice resounded from somewhere in the darkened office.
The justice was so startled that he yelped slightly and instinctively released his grip on the receiver and the phone tumbled right out of his hand! Justice Saul stood up abruptly!
“Whose there? Is someone there?” he enquired of the thin air in a shaking voice. He heard a voice again and realized that it was the guard’s panicked voice over the phone that lay on the floor beside his leather chair.
“Justice Saul? Justice Saul! Is everything OK in there?”
Saul bent down and picked up the receiver.
“Sorry about that Peter, my friend. I am just tired.” Saul said, glancing up at the clock. “My God! It’s 12:05 and guess I’m a bit jumpy! Think we could get that ride for me and I’ll get my bureaucratic rear end home and in bed.”
“That’s affirmative, sir, in ten.”
“Thank you Peter.” Saul sat the receiver down and shivered. The temperature had not changed, but he felt cold in his bones.
Justice Saul ventured out into the large Great Hall that led directly into the Court chambers. Saul heard his office chambers door click shut, but it sounded like several closing at the same time in the reverberating bareness of the hour. He walked into the semi-darkness and could still make out the square gold overlay tiles that adorned the hall’s ceiling. It was by any standard, magnificent to behold. Even in the darkness at almost half past midnight, the security floodlights reflected off the tiles and gave it an eerie mystique that both refreshed the fear cells and prohibited one from running away by virtue of the awe it inspired. The Justice paused from his departure and looked down the corridor of power and saw the marble pillars that lined the walkway. It was a thing to behold, even for a Supreme Court Justice who had seen it all day after day for past five and half years. He wasn’t the newest of the revelators of wisdom to sit on the bench, but his tenor was still young in comparison to the term he had sworn to fulfill.
“Lifetime is a long time to do the same thing.” he thought. “But then, we are about to do something completely different.” He affirmed to himself. “Perhaps my term shall not be as long as I had hoped, after tomorrow?” he speculated.
He walked on down the Great Hall and his footsteps resonated so much so that it sounded like another set in step with his followed in pursuit; so much so that he paused and just listened. His feet had stopped and so did the echo. Fatigue had gotten to him and so had the task at hand; nothing a good night sleep could not rectify, or so he told himself.
Justice Saul made his way down the hall. As he walked, his trepidation subsided and he realized that, though it was his fist time to have ventured down the elaborate walkway in the dark, he could really find his way with his eyes closed, which was virtually what he was doing just now. He walked out into the massive entrance and over to the twirling, spiraling stairwell, which was the largest one of two that twirled and twisted as one ascended upward supposedly into some just nirvana. Saul gazed upward into the darkened stairwell and made out the design and felt almost entranced by it.
“This was built to depict the nation rising to wisdom and justice.” He declared to himself. Tomorrow are we taking a plunge downward…reaching some new plateau as so many have declared?”
He was still unsure in a manner he had never felt before. He knew that what ever decision he rendered would have consequences.
“Temporary bedlam is certainly preferable to a future of madness! That is no future at all.” He whispered to himself as he continued to stare upward.
“Breathtaking, is it not?” a voice resounded behind the Justice!
“What the hell!” Justice Saul shouted, almost screamed with the echo bouncing off the walls and seemingly all the way up the stairwell! He turned around and saw a man peering up the stairwell with him. The man didn’t flinch, didn’t even glance over at Saul. He just stood there calmly and looked up while Saul’s heart rate evened out.
“Who are you? I have a radio you know.” Saul somewhat aggressively informed the man.
“I saw it the first time as a child you know.” The man said. “I was so stricken right there and then that I decided that this was a great country! I mean, only a great people could conceive of something so grand and stunning as these steps up toward a God who had destined we be here.” The man’s eyes seemed transfixed and glued upward.
“At first I wanted to be a lawyer, ha-ha, until I met a few. The ones I met weren’t going to be on staircase marching in that direction, any time soon.”
“Sir, I have a big day tomorrow and you need to declare your business or I will be forced to…”
“It was there and then that I decided that what I was born to do was to fight for the country…to ensure we always marched onward and upward.”
The man finally broke his gaze and turned his face toward Justice Saul’s and in the thick darkness, simply stared at him. Saul felt trembling begin to invade his every nerve and his knees began to buckle from fear. Saul finally found his second nerve and turned to leave.
“I’m sorry, but I have to go. My driver is waiting for me.”
“Sir, let me assist you. I apologize. The place always gets the best of me! It’s just that I’ve seen so many of our best and brightest fall downward so that Americans could freely mount those sacred steps. I hope I did not frighten you.”
“I’d be a liar to say you didn’t, but just get me to my car.”
“Follow me, sir.”
Justice Saul followed the man from a safe distance back. The man had a uniform on but even in the dark, the Justice could see that it wasn’t a uniform he had ever seen a guard wearing in the Court complex. The man seemed benign, yet mildly malicious. Saul could now see the exit with two guards in normal attire standing the waiting to escort the Justice to his waiting car. The man spoke up.
“Justice Saul, I think I heard you say that you had a busy day tomorrow.”
Saul stopped and looked at the man in the increased lighting near the exit doors.
“Just who are you, anyway?”
The man also stopped and turned his face toward Saul. His face was torn and one eye socket was empty and his shirt was filled with blood-stained holes.
“As I was saying, sir. You have a busy schedule tomorrow?”
Saul backed up further. “Well, yes…yes I have.”
“Just wait till you see how busy you’re gonna be tonight!”
Saul turned and started screaming out to the guards posted at the doors.
“Guard! Guard! Help me! There’s a crazy man here and he…” Saul turned back toward the man and he was gone! The guard rushed over to Justice Saul with his pistol in hand.
“Are you OK, Justice Saul? “
Saul looked around and still saw nothing until he looked down at the marble floor. There, he saw two photographs lying face up. One was of Katherine Pool, founder of the "choice for self" movement that had spearheaded most of which Saul was sleepless over way back in the twenties. The other was of Ralph Fellows, the lawyer who had made the case before Saul and his other eight fellow robed dispensers of wisdom only two weeks earlier. Both pictures had an “X” drawn across the faces in the photos with the words, “Enemies of humanity!” written across the center. Justice Saul bent down and took the photographs into his hand and tucked them into his suit-coat pocket.
“Yes…Yes I am…fine. Just cranky and tired!”
“I understand, sir. Please follow me.”
Those words frightened Saul. He had heard them before. Justice Laurence Saul walked up to the exit doorway that was being held open by the security guard. Before he walked out, he looked back into the darkness and wondered what he had just encountered. He knew it was more than his imagination and that this night had already had enough mental contusions. He just wanted to go home and retire up to his room and sleep. Being the swing vote on the bench made him, at least temporarily, the most power Justice in the Supreme Court.
“I don’t care!” he blurted out audibly!
“Sir, I am sorry but I’m afraid I didn’t hear you.” The guard inquired.
Saul looked embarrassed and he was sweating heavily and breathing quickly.
“Justice Saul, is everything ok? You seem a bit…”
“Thank you for your concern, Officer. I just want to go home and sleep.”
“Your car is just outside, Sir.”
Saul walked out toward the waiting limousine. He felt the cool night air enter into his lungs and it refreshed his senses. That voice and the man, whoever it was…whatever it was…if he was at all, had been almost like a fist to the gut and had knocked the wind out of him. The fresh air felt better than his first hot cup of coffee in the morning! He took a few steps toward the car and heard voices in the night air. He was sure they were real, but slightly doubted himself. He turned and looked at the guard accompanying him.
“Do you hear that?”
“What is that, Justice Saul? You mean those voices…the protesters? Yes, they’ve been out there all night. We were all a bit worried that you were still here so late with them out there and still wide awake.”
“Are they out there about tomorrow? What are they doing; carrying signs and dressed all up in black…you know painted faces and look all ominous and all?”
“No sir, they are praying.”
“Praying?”
“Yes Sir; praying for you.” said the guard while opening the limousine door for Justice Saul.
Justice Saul slid into the car and it quietly pulled out onto First Street and he could see where the voices were coming from. He had expected anger and aggressive signs. What he saw surprised him. There were no darkly-clad images in the night. Instead, he saw groups of men and women huddled together and praying for God to give Justice Laurence Saul wisdom in his ruling. The signs spoke volumes to the Justice also.
“God Guide you, Justice Saul!”
“We are praying for you, Justice Saul.”
“Please think about the children!”
“Constitutional =The death of America! / Unconstitutional =America has a future!”
“Slow down Peter. I want to watch this for a moment.”
“Yes Sir, but it could be dangerous.”
“Dangerous? They’re praying! They’re praying for me of all things!”
“A lot of us are doing that, Sir.”
Saul opened the back window and peered outside. There was no violence and those who carried the signs while the others prayed also kept a lookout for any opposing groups of thugs that might appear at any time. Everyone knew that America was only hours away from literally changing America completely and forever; everyone including Supreme Court Justice Laurence Saul. One of the lookouts saw the Justice’s face staring out of the car window. He dropped his sign and fell to his knees with his face bowed low and placed both hands in jacket’s pockets. The protester slowly raised his face up to meet Saul’s gaze. The man’s looked directly into Saul’s eyes and smiled ominously! His face became immediately clear to Justice Saul.
“My God! That’s him! That’s him Peter!”
“Who…who is it, Sir?”
“It’s that man I met in the building!”
“You mean the guard, Sir?
“Never mind Peter! Just put it in gear and get out of here!”
The man pulled his hands out of his pockets. He was squeezing on a live grenade in
each! He stood up on his feet! Saul’s driver, Peter saw nothing. Then the man with a disfigured face and blood-stained holes on his military fatigues took on an angry look and shouted at Saul!
“Enemies of Humanity all!”
He then reared back and threw a grenade at Saul’s car and
quickly turned and threw the other one across the street into a small group of supporters of the bill on which Saul would soon have to rule.
“Peter, didn’t you see that! Get the hell out of here! Before we…”
The grenade flew right through the window and landed in the back seat next to Saul and a blast rang out! Saul felt his skin ripping off his bones and the searing heat melted his eyes and he knew he had died! Then, everything was silent. Slowly, ever so carefully, Saul touched his eyes. They were still there! He was afraid to opened them! He called out Peter’s name. There was no answer.
“Peter! Peter! Are you OK? Are you alive?” No answer!
Finally, Saul forced his eyes open and looked and saw his driver, Peter sitting at the wheel waiting to be told what to do! The back glass separating Saul from the driver was closed. Saul hit the switch and it slid down.
“Are you ok, Peter?”
“Yes sir, I am fine. Are you sure you are alright, Sir. I’m beginning to worry about you.”
“You have to call 911, Peter! We have to help those people!”
“Where, Justice Saul? Is someone hurt?”
“I should say so! Didn’t you hear the explosion?!”
“No, Sir.” Peter responded and turned around to look at Saul. Justice Saul began to scream!
The man at the wheel was the same one who had just tossed the grenades!
“But you heard them, didn’t you?” the man said as he reached back and took Saul into his grip and pulled him up to the window!
“You’re gonna hear a lot tonight and you ain’t seen nothing yet!” Saul screamed a blood-curdling scream and opened his eyes again. He saw Peter on the phone calling for help.
“Put it away, Peter.”
“Sir, it is my duty to…”
“Put it away, I’m alright, I assure you.”
The car pulled out and the praying crowd waved at Saul. The sleeping remnant of the bill supporters, from earlier in the day, raised their middle fingers toward the prayerful group and shouted.
“Tomorrow, everything’s going to change! You’ve had your day!”
They began to chant, “Free Sex!” “Gay Rights” “Death Rights!” “Reproductive Rights!”
Saul’s limousine drove on, but he had heard them. He sat back and reflected on it all. He was certain, almost, that he had simply allowed himself to let his nerves shake his resolve. Saul was a true constitutionalist. Yet, the doctrine that espoused that the constitution was a living document had gained a lot of prominence in the past decade. Many cases had been decided or gone unheard by the court based on the living nature of the now tattered document. He had always believed that society needed to cleave to the document that was set in stone. That was why he had been nominated and why he had faced such an uphill battle during his confirmation hearings in the first place. Yet, beyond his ability to see it or to notice it, he had been affected by it all. The sodomy ruling, the failure of the court to rule on the Shiavo case during the Rehnquist Court’s purview had truly helped cement the living document into the social psyche. It had created precedents for future rulings that had naturally led to the case before the court that had rent Justice Saul’s amoral logic asunder! Now here he sat, in stunned silence, trying to understand the upside and downside of something just five short years earlier would have been decided on a good night’s sleep! Yes, everything would change tomorrow, no matter how he ruled, but one thing was already sure. Judge Laurence Saul had changed already. It was as though he were in a trance until he heard the driver communicating with Secret Service.
“Trump Card is at the perimeter and requesting access.”
“Roger that Trump Card, you are clear and in the perimeter. Joining your progress as we speak.”
“My-oh-my, Peter, I don’t know if I fell asleep or just staring off in space.”
“That’s ok, Justice Saul. You’ve got a lot on your mind, but it was the latter, sir.”
“Latter?”
“Space, Sir. You were just staring into space.”
Saul just acknowledged with a small groan and a shake of his head.
The lights of Saul’s home could be seen in the distance as they illuminated the night haze of valley where it sat. It always gave off its greenish glow into the mist. Tonight, though it seemed different, somehow murkier than usual. Saul looked out the window at the trees streaming by as the car made its way down the winding path that led to his front door. It was a mystical and somewhat fearful site, considering all he had heard and seen tonight. He rather feared for his sanity. He was sure Peter, up front driving steadily and constantly looking back at his boss with worried eyes, had no doubt that Justice Saul had met his match of wills when it came to “The Individual Rights and Termination Bill” or IRAT as it had become known. Many had simply added an “E” to the end and expressed their feeling toward it.
Saul had read both sides of the issue and both the dissent and the approval reasonings from his fellow colleagues. It had constantly been an illogical and hypocritical thing in his mind that they who supported the right to die at will, the right of women to terminate what Justice Laurence Saul had always regarded as human life in their wombs were always the first and the loudest to cry murder at the execution of someone who had taken the life of another without their consent. It seemed duplicitous, to say the least. Yet, as the leaders of such groups were never wanting in their fervor to declare, those cases involved the deaths of individuals who, albeit heinous in life, had never given own consent to their own deaths. That somehow made sense to Saul, though it never had some five short years earlier. Washington tended to change a person, altered the mind due to a constant barrage of analysis of a public figure’s every move. Every word was measured, every restaurant was given a special significance and any human weakness seemed a scandal no matter how common it might seem for the common American. It had taken its toll on Justice Laurence Saul, as well. Family values and morals groups had a lot of hope in Saul and though they were worried that he could pull a surprise on them, they fully expected him to rule with the dissent and declare the measure unconstitutional. Yet, the new pagans, as they were loathed to be so designated, on the left, who were far less numerous in their ranks, but who always shouted the loudest, also had reason to hope. Saul was a deeply conservative man and had always declared his adherence to family values. That is, until he, himself was faced with his own personal tragedy.
As Saul’s car continued its approach along the path towards his semi-stately manor, his mind went back to a more tender time in his life. It was a moment in the life of every person when they longed to be adult and shed the confusion of being a minor-almost-adult. In fact, he found adulthood far more befuddling, which made those days of malaise so enticing now. It was during that time that he had met her.
Saul had met many young budding potential brides during his college years. It seemed harder to find a perfect mate at Harvard, and he suspected it was no less difficult at any IVY League school. It wasn’t that they were so much brighter and lofty than the “run-of-the-mill” institutions, just richer and better pruned. Though today, there was little to distinguish the beauties in any school throughout America, in Saul’s day of cracking the books into the wee hours of the night, they were all prim and proper and one could never be too sure or too careful before bowing the knee to make promises that always seemed impossible to keep. Yet, then, at that time of valor and honor, one did keep their word and he was not about to get stuck with some lovely shining thing who’d end up being a hollow statue, a mere shell of the woman he had first met. So, he waited, but he had never stopped looking.
Then, when he had lost the research volume he had checked out and had gone to the circulation desk at the Harvard Law Library to plead for mercy, he decided to just pay for the book rather than sounding like a blathering buffoon to the beautiful proper thing behind the desk. He had looked at her name tag that read Emma and then into her face. When he had told her he had to pay for the lost volume she said he should take a little more time to look for it and extended his grace period along with a smile that told him she had noticed him too. His eyes said a lot of things to Emma that day and His heart knew her right there and then, something only men could understand and which women never comprehended but had fully learned to use to its fullest advantage.
From that day on, he could count only two things that had never changed one iota in his life. He had never stopped gazing into Emma’s face and he had never paid for the book. From the time he had met her, asked her for that first date, bent his knee to her and extended her finger and held her in his arms on their first night of passion, he had loved Emma and had kept every promise he had made to her, except one. Throughout Saul’s rising career, when he had one more case, one more meeting to attend or one more opinion for her to listen to, she had made almost no demands on her husband. Through his busy, always working days, doing things that he new were vital, but which meant virtually nothing to her, he had never stopped gazing into her face and Emma knew her man loved her. She had been bright, supportive and content to stay right there and raise their one daughter, Isabel or Iggie as everyone one called her because as a child she could say the “z” sound. Theirs had been one of those remnant relationships that had truly been made in heaven. It seemed that everything they touched turned to gold, until the gold had run dry.
“Cancer? Cancer!” Saul shouted in his mind. He looked around in the car to make sure he had not done so audibly. The fly in the ointment, that one stroke that destroyed my masterpiece!” he told himself. Emma had been there with him throughout his meteoric rise to power and had been his very own very best adviser and supporter. She had taken his side even when she knew he was wrong, only correcting his way in the most placid and private manners.
“She knew her man!” he concluded.
Now, here he was, face to face with the biggest decision of his life, and no less so for the nation and the one person he had never doubted one time was no where to be found. It was exactly that, Emma’s absence, Emma’s harsh, lingering, soul-numbing death that made his decision tomorrow appear so hard to arrive at. He had always believed in life. He had opposed abortion and had always felt that no one had the right to end anyone’s life, even their own. Yet, had he not been charged with the awful reality that his wife’s life was gone and there was no hope. Had he not pulled the plug that at least kept her chest rising and descending, giving a semblance of life? He did not want anyone to have to makes such decisions on their own again, because he knew full well how painful that was, but he had not regretted trying and that was the other side of the picture in his mind. He had promised to save her life.
He had literally gone to the ends of the Earth to help her while he had sat there with her as she wasted away to nothing as he had seen her chest rise for the last time remaining there in suspended animation while her sight faded and as he whispered his last, “I love You” to her. It was a final conclusion he had prepared himself for physically, but for which he had utterly failed when the final devastating moment arrived.
Saul had heard Emma’s voice many times since her death. He had always put the sounds of her laugh and her voice in thin air over to a vivid imagination longing for her touch, her smell and her counsel. He had never sought it out, but she seemed to be with him every where he went. Now, he was actually seeking her advice. Who could know better what was right concerning his all-important issue? Yet, when he truly needed some mystic resolve, there was nothing. He actually felt she was completely gone from him for the first time! He was on his own. Then, the words he had heard from earlier in the evening came to him.
“You’re never alone!” he recalled. “Perhaps it was not some ogre but from…God? One never knows.” But he did know that there was no outside force that could render his ruling for him; not even Emma. The whole wretched experience had altered his life forever! The new pagans had cashed in all their chips in one human race gamble that Emma’s death would have the same affect on the country as it had on Justice Laurence Saul.
The car pulled into the circle driveway and stopped in front of the house. Peter got out and felt the drizzle in the air and heard the low growl of the gathering dark clouds above in the very early morning sky. He walked to the backdoor and opened for Justice Saul.
“Sir, is there anything else you need from me tonight?”
“Peter, I need you to try to get some sleep. I’ll need to leave for the office at around 10:00 in the morning.”
“Duly noted, Sir.”
Saul turned and walked up to the door which was held open by his housekeeper.
“Sir?” Peter called out. Saul turned slowly to look in Peter’s direction.
“Yes, Peter.”
“If I may, please remember, you are never alone.” Peter shouted
Saul felt his head slightly taken aback by the phrase but showed no surprise to his driver.
“Thank you Peter, that’s a good thought at such a moment as this.” Saul entered his house.
“We are burning the midnight oil tonight?” Saul’s butler asked an obvious question as he took the Justice’s coat.
“Sam, quite undesirably, I might add! There’s always a bigger fish. I my case it’s the people, of which you are one.”
“Quite proud to be so as well, I say.”
Saul turned to mount the stairs.
“Could you send up a nightcap? No food, won’t do at all.”
“Sir, I have already sent up the warm Bordeaux. Is that adequate for such a night as this?”
“Well Sam, there’s a question. Adequate? For sure not! But much wiser indeed.
Thank you Sam. It will do fine.”
“My pleasure, Sir”
Saul turned and climbed the first three steps.
“Oh yes, I forgot to tell you…”
“Yes, Sam” Saul stated, slowly turning around. “What is it, Sam?” asked Saul with exasperation and fatigue in his voice.
“You received this letter by special delivery. I took the liberty of signing for it. I hope that does not meet with your displeasure.”
“Perfectly fine, Sam. That’s what you're for and you are also for friendship, so stop being so incredibly kind.” Saul said as he walked and over to his butler.
“You can call Larry, like everyone used to, I have told you that.”
“Yes sir, Larry it is, Sir.” Sam affirmed.
Saul amicably snatched the letter from Sam with slight smile and fake aggravation in his movement.
“For goodness sakes, man, now that makes me Sir Larry. I kind of like the sound of that…Sir Larry, hum?”
He turned and climbed the stairs to the top. He looked at the envelope, which possessed nothing in the way of anything striking or special. It was common in every way. He turned it over and held it up to the light, as if he were forbidden from opening it. He had had it drilled into him that he could never take a chance with anything, even as passé as unexpected mail. Yet, it was not the lessons from his handlers that gave him such apprehension. It was this night; a night that was full of confusion, strange voices and deep soul searching.
Saul walked into his bedroom and tossed the envelope onto the bed. He flipped on the TV and started taking of his clothes. A shower would just have to wait till morning. The moment the TV flashed on, Saul saw his face plastered all over the screen. He flipped the channel, Fox, CNN, MSNBC virtually every channel including C-Span were covering the big ruling to take place in less than ten hours.
Saul sat down at the edge of his bed and listened to how the whole affair was being packaged.
“Chris, there is just no denying it. If the court upholds the IRAT bill, it will take on the greatest reach of the government into the lives of the American people to date. Perhaps there will never be anything ever passed like it in the future.”
“Yes Alex, there has never been anything like it. We’re joined by conservative talk show host, Michael Nance. Michael, I’m sure I don’t need to ask so tell us, at this juncture, what you think about tomorrow’s ruling, only hours away from what I suspect you regard as the abyss.”
“I am in no mood for your nonsense or cynicism! Let’s see it for what it is! We all knew all the warnings in the world would not stop the government takeover of our health care system. Chris, we would bitch, moan and scream about that, but we could almost live with that as much as we hate the idea. But this is not a mere takeover of Americans’ healthcare needs; this is a coupe d’état! This bill has already been overturned by two Federal Courts, a Federal Appeals Court and I am sure it will be turned over by the Supreme Court tomorrow morning.”
“Thank you Michael. Now let’s…”
“Wait…just let me say my bit and I’ll get off your show. If this bill is passed, it will be cradle to the grave control of the masses. It will regulate eligibility for education, it will control a child’s health records from birth and parents will be incarcerated regularly for obesity and numerous other heretofore unimaginable offences. There will be no resuscitation orders placed on those the “Government” deems terminal…which, by the way, will now be determined based on one’s quality of life rather than potential of living a good life even with certain infirmities. The mentally ill and those without the wherewithal to maintain a healthy life will be chosen for termination!”
“You are out of your mind, Mr. Nance! There has never been any provision for such things in this bill.”
Saul was looking around on the bed for the remote to change to another channel when he heard his name in the tube.
“I am not going to try to persuade you, because the hope making you and the loud minority of the country like you to change and see the truth will be when you wake up one morning and realize that you, your family nor anyone you love is ever safe again. I am speaking to Justice Saul, if you are listening Sir, we have faith in you, but there are a lot of forces arrayed against us now in the country and they are all aimed at you. Are you prepared to let the mentally infirmed, the aged, the terminally ill and the unborn never again have a fighting chance. Are you ready to approve, as the bill mandates, that some Human Utility Board be set up that will, in a very real way, have more power than the President himself in that they will decide who will live or die and who is useful or who merits touching the benefits we have all worked for all our lives? Think about it, Sir before it’s too late. Thanks Chris for at least letting say what I think the nation needs to hear. They have been warned!”
“Wow! Michael Nance, ladies and gentlemen. We are joined now by the founder of the Liberal Progress Board, George Sorloff. Mr. Sorloff, the floor is yours I guess in the interest of fairness.”
“Chris, we are hearing the same old gloom and doom and the fear tactic that the American people have grown accustomed to and are sick of...”
Saul reached behind his back and his hand searched for the remote. He did find it, but his hand found the envelope he had received earlier in the day. His finger wrapped around it when the TV screen suddenly changed. Before his eyes, Saul could see the Supreme Court swirling stairwell with him staring up at it. He seemed to be alone, but then something seemed to appear and disappear again. It was there, no it was gone! Then it appeared and stayed! It was him, that man, the one who had the bloody face! Saul rubbed his eyes and changed the channel. The images across the screen remained the same. Then it changed and to his abhorrence, pictures of aborted fetuses appeared. They were bloody, some in tact, others torn to pieces and in shreds. He wanted to turn his face away but the image was so shocking and searing to his soul that he was forced to sit there and watch the myriad of unborn human lives, America’s with no rights, lay there on metal tables, in trash bags and canisters with the biohazard symbol emblazoned on the side.
Then the image changed to the Image of Terrie Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman who in 2005 had been ordered to die without a shred of proof that she even requested to do so. There were pictures of her smiling at her mother and father, protesters for and against her life continuing, pictures of her crying and finally images of her dead, starved and dehydrated body lying on her bed. Random shots flashed across the screen of the infirm, the elderly and the mentally ill. The last photo that appeared on the screen was that of the most precious person in Justice Laurence Saul’s life. Tears formed in the corners of Saul’s eyes and then began to flow like a river down he tired and bewildered face.
“No! You can’t be so heartless as that! No!”
Saul heard a knock at the door.
“Judge Saul, is everything alright? Judge Saul?”
“Yes, yes ,yes! I am fine” Saul responded looking over at the door.
“Are you sure? Can I help you somehow?”
“I am fine Sam, go back to sleep.” He ordered. “Old fool never sleeps!” he murmured to himself.
When Saul turned back around, he saw the talking heads on the MSNBC report back on the screen. He truly wondered if he had lost his mind. Had he fallen asleep? He looked at his watch. It was 2:43 AM. He saw the envelope in his fingers. It made his hands begin to shake slightly. Slowly, he slid his finger under the sealed flap and slid it across the envelope until it was opened. He spread the envelop open and as though it were some chemical agent, two of his fingers took hold of the one sheet of paper inside. He pulled it out rather quickly, evidently finding his nerve again and held out in front of him still folded.
“Ah! What the hell!”
He unfolded it and dropped it to the floor and stared at the words, “You are never alone!” written across it!
“What is happening to me?” he quietly but fearfully asked himself.
He turned the TV and jumped under the covers! The man who held the power of life and death over the whole nation pulled the covers over his head and lay there shaking and bewildered until his heart regained a steady rhythm and weariness was overtaken by slumber and fell asleep only seconds later. Only Supreme Court Justice Laurence Saul could decide what type of world he would wake up in.
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