©1993 Kira Carrillo Corser
(A Story with Some Ridiculous Generalizations
and a Happy Ending)
Once upon a future time, one day in the first year of the twenty-first
century, a sick person walked through the woods. She was wearing a white
Body Shield to protect herself. She was on her way to hospital.
She walked through the trees, up the hill, and down the street, and a sick
child saw her. The next day, the child wore a white shield with a bold
red cross like the ones painted on medical trucks in war zones. More and
more sick people began to wear body shields. And when a critical mass formed,
something forgotten was remembered throughout the land and the old ways
of caring about the sick were revived.
Doctors forgot their golf club membership fees and remembered their Hippocratic
oath to heal the sick. Hospitals forgot their CEO's private plane and remembered
their origins as healing houses. Lawyers forgot their Porsche payments
and remembered their principles. Insurance companies remembered their intention
to protect the sick, and transformed themselves into the Prevention Business.
Legislators remembered Eleanor Roosevelt's Universal Declaration of Human
Rights from 1948 and declared "the right of everyone to medical care
and security in the event of sickness."
And shields were painted and hoisted in the streets, decked with ribbons
and flowers and virtual reality. There was jazz and salsa dancing and carrot
juice cocktails. And the Great Festival of Health rose throughout the land.
- Frances Payne Adler © 1993
©1993Kira Carrillo Corser