Pathway House No. 5 Arjay Morgan Copyright ó 2009 Arjay

Pathway House No. 5 Arjay Morgan Copyright Ó 2009 Arjay Morgan Cover Copyright Ó 2009 Mary M. Morgan Pathway House No. 5 Arjay Morgan Smashwords Edition Copyright 2009 Arjay Morgan Scribd Edition, License Notes Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. Thank you for your support.

Part the First 1 The appointment was set for 2:30 that afternoon. A government representative was due at Mark and Ellen's home to discuss how they would like to end their lives. It was part of the new Universal Health Coverage Plan, and it was a conversation that was mandated by the government. This conversation was going to be particularly difficult. Mark had suffered through some painful and degrading medical procedures dealing with his colon and heart, not to mention a hint of black lung disease, the result of a few years working in the area anthracite coal mines. He wasn't happy and was beginning to feel himself to be a burden on Ellen. For her part, Ellen wasn't doing a whole lot better. Crippled with arthritis and asthma, every step, every breath, was an exercise in pain. She too was beginning to feel herself a burden. Maybe today's meeting could put an end to their mutual suffering. 2 Christian Blessing, at 24, seemed oddly out of place in his job of counseling people old enough to be his grandparents about end-of-life strategies, but that was his job and he was good at it. Christian, you see, had two agendas: to give old folks good information about their options, but more importantly to his paycheck, convincing them that the time had come for them to visit one of the Government's new facilities -- named Pathway Houses. It was all part of a grand new plan to reshape America in ways that it had never been reshaped before. It was a plan that went to the core values of American life and changed them in strange new ways. It all began during an almost secret meeting in the White House years before when it became apparent that Social Security was on the verge of collapse and the reason was alarmingly simple: improved health care had led to people living longer. In short, there were just too many old people. Loathe to increase taxes the President and his counselors came up with an amazingly simple solution. Just make it easy for Seniors to choose death. To meet that objective people like Christian were recruited, trained, maybe even brainwashed a little, and a network of discreet Pathway Houses was set up. 3 Christian Alfred Blessing was born of middle class parents, his father owned an automobile service station, his mother taught English in the Clinton, Iowa high school. His upbringing was without note -Sunday School, playgrounds, Boy Scouts and school were the touchstones of his young life. After High School he went off to Iowa State to study English, hoping to become an English teacher, like his mother. It was his senior year when Christian went to an on-campus job fair hoping to make a school district contact that would smooth his transition from sitting in a classroom as a student to being a teacher in a classroom. While browsing the booths at the fair he ventured into a booth labeled "Department of Elder Passage." It was more of a whim that dred Christian to the booth. He really wasn't much interested in government work, but he was intrigued that the government would have a department with such a strange name. He wanted to learn what it was all about. Upon entering entered the booth he found himself standing toe-to-toe with an astonishingly pretty

woman. Her name tag read "Cindy," and, unsurprisingly, she greeted Christian with her name and an invitation to take a seat. Christian shook her hand, sat and plunged right in. "What, exactly is the Department of Elder Passage?" he asked. She explained that it was a a new government program dealing with Senior Citizens and the problems they faced as they aged. Christian, were he to be totally honest, wasn't the least bit interested in anything that had the smell of 'government' on it, but he felt strangely attracted to Cindy and wondered how such an attractive woman found herself in an obscure agency. So he settled in for what was probably going to be a very boring 20 minutes. "What we do is help older people make very important decisions about their lives, especially the end of their lives" she explained. "We are really a hands-on program, and what we're looking for is people who enjoy being out in the field, meeting and talking with our seniors. If you're accepted you'll be sent to a really unique training site for six weeks, then you'll be assigned to one of our 154 field offices. Since it's a new agency there's lots of room for advancement and if you work out you can travel a bit between facilities.Think of it as a way to see the country at leisure and on the government's dime." Christian thought a bit and, yes, come to think of it, he did like to travel. "But don't senior citizens know all about what they have coming to them? There's AARP and outfits like that that tell 'em everything they need to know," he said. "True enough, but like I said, this is a new program, and not all we have to offer is public knowledge. In fact," she said, "you'll have to pass a background check and you'll end up with a Secret-level clearance. There are just some areas of our program that aren't quite ready for public consumption. It's not spying or anything like that, but you do need to be aware that some of what we do is um, sensitive." Intrigued, Christian accepted the stack of forms Cindy was pushing toward him and began to fill them out. When he was done he noticed the girl was seated at another table talking earnestly to a middleaged couple. He scraped his chair, made eye contact, and was about to leave when Cindy disengaged herself from the couple, went to his table, took possession of the stack of forms and told him he'd be "hearing from someone in Washington in a couple of days." It was more like three weeks, before Christian got a call from the agency. He was told he'd been selected for the program and to expect an envelope in a day or so. He was told it would contain a government credit card, a travel authorization and a few other forms along with a letter of instruction that would tell him what to do. 4 Meanwhile, back in Washington, Department of Elder Passage officials finalizing their Pathway House system. It was designed to be a network of homey, comfortable, non-institutional looking buildings, equipped with the latest ecologically sound technology and staffed with highly trained technicians and other workers. Ideally, the government would acquire existing buildings and re purpose them. The model most favored included hunting lodges, vacation resorts and what the government called "stately private residences." The rest of the world would call them mansions.

The bureaucrats worked for weeks on a Mission Statement that ended up as: "To gently and compassionately lead the willing on the pathway to the next journey." It was judged to be sufficiently ambiguous, yet inspiring. In addition to being ecologically friendly the buildings were also to house some very secret operations. For instance, recognizing a shortage in implantable organs, the agency decided that an organ harvesting operation would be included, and that function was dovetailed into the existing transplant network. Of course, what it would do would be to drastically reduce the waiting time for transplant recipients. Another idea was to use the heat produced by the reduction operations to generate steam and electricity. Government labs advised that human bodies were not likely to provide enough energy for the operation to be self-sustaining, but that there was some measurable amount of energy that could be recovered in the combustion process. In the words of one director, "every little bit helps." Of course, all of these ideas were dictated from Washington with the painstaking, eye-glazing detail beloved by any bureaucracy and the rules were published in booklets that all employees were expected to follow. 5 Christian's instructions told him in step-by-step detail to go to the airport and take United Flight 365 to the Baltimore-Washington International airport and look for his guide. Just as the letter had promised there was a man holding a sign, "GOVT. SCHOOL THIS WAY" right there at the bottom of the escalator in the airport. Around him were clustered a half dozen, mostly bewildered, individuals. One was a gray haired fellow who looked as though he'd been through the drill dozens of times. Another was a striking blonde perched atop staggeringly high heels who didn't look like she belonged anywhere on this planet. Christian grabbed his luggage, a single bag with a handle and wheels, from the baggage carousel and edged into the group. Once the headcount reached 19 the man holding the sign simply said, "c'mon, the bus is waiting," and the group followed him like ducklings. The bus ride through the Maryland countryside was uneventful and the conversation non-existent. It was obvious they were headed toward the Catoctin Mountains, best known as the site of the Presidential Retreat, Camp David, but none of the passengers had any doubt that their destination was miles from there both in distance and accommodations. Finally, after an hour's ride, the bus pulled off the highway into a circular drive and stopped in front of a red brick building bearing the cryptic sign, "Building C." It was set among an eclectic collection of other buildings including what looked very much like a Catholic church. Christian knew from his instruction letter that he would be lodged in room C-132 and the woman behind the reception counter confirmed this as she handed him a key and a slim brochure along with yet another file folder. "Hang onto that folder," she said, "It contains your life for the next couple of weeks," and it did. Everything from time to wake up to meal times, bathroom breaks, bed times and a bewildering number of what he presumed were class names. Once in his room Christian stowed his gear in the closet, opened his folder and was delighted to see that nothing was scheduled for the rest of the day except dinner at 6:00. He also saw a map of the complex and wasted no time in determining the dining facility was on the other side of campus. Turning to the brochure he learned he was really living in a dorm room of what had at one time been a

Catholic girls college. The school went belly up and the government bought it and turned it into a training center and, lo and behold, Camp David was, in fact, just over the mountain ridge he could see out of his dorm room window. He decided to get the lay of the land and began to walk around the campus. When he got to the church he was surprised to see its interior was all white marble, but where the pews should have been there were government issue cubicles inhabited by government issue drones doing what had to be boring work. He left quickly, turned left and found the dining facility that also happened to house a dozen classrooms. Nice, tidy and compact, thought Christian as he turned into another building that turned out, to his surprise, to be tavern -- bar, pool tables, loud jukebox. "Who woulda' thought," he mumbled. Not being a drinker he went back to his room for a nap. The late afternoon sun shining on his face woke Christian just in time for dinner. He made his way across campus and after presenting his meal ticket entered the vaulted dining hall. In a former life it looked as though the room might have been a gymnasium. The cafeteria line was tucked into an alcove and multi-seat tables filled the rest of the space. He was prepared to endure weeks of bland, but nourishing, government food but as he stepped into the serving line alcove he was surprised at the variety, not to mention the smiling black man wielding an enormous knife as he removed slices of rare roast beef from an even more enormous roast. Loading his plate to overflowing Christian headed into the dining hall where he was hailed by one of his bus mates who was among a dozen or so new arrivals at a table for 12. After exchanging greetings and exchanging names the conversation turned to speculation about what was in store in the coming weeks. Some said it was a government 'charm school' that would teach them how to deal with old farts. Another sentiment was just how good it felt to be embarked upon a program that had the prospect of doing some good for those in need. The gray-haired guy harrumphed at all their ideas. "It's not gonna be anything like what you think," he pronounced. "there is no such thing as an altruistic government program. I'm as much in the dark as you are, but I'll guarantee one thing; when we figure out what's going on some of us are not going to be happy. I've been around these alphabet agencies before and I'll make you another promise; some of us are not going to make it all the way through. Look around, I'll lay some heavy money that the guy or gal you're sitting next to won't be here next week." His words cast a pall on the group, conversation was stilled and great attention was paid to putting away as much food as possible as quickly as was decent. A hand rested on Christian's arm and its owner, a rail-thin girl with tinted oval eyeglasses whispered, "don't pay him any attention. He's just here for the money. I used to work in D.C. and I know the type. By the way my name is Cheryl and I already know yours is Christian. Can I call you Chris?" "Chris would be fine," he said, "and it would be even better if we'd be partners through this training. I have a feeling two heads are going to be better than one. Deal?" "Deal," she said, "now how about we check out the tavern?" And, off they went for two beers, a short game of 8-ball and then to bed, not only separately but in different buildings..

6 Next morning, after a hearty breakfast and lots of chatter at the breakfast table about what was ahead, the class assembled as directed in Room F-22. There they were met with tables, chairs, pads, pencils, and Miss Rowena Altschufer. They would remember Miss Rowena Altschufer to the end of their days. She was a middle-age woman with light brown hair, hazel eyes, and a charcoal gray suit that just shouted "Government Business." "Here is a stack of name tags," she said, "you will come up and get your tag and you will wear it throughout this course, not just in class, but everywhere. If your tag wears out I'll have another one made. There is no excuse for losing a tag. Am I clear?" "Ooh my," thought Christian, "this is going to be one of THOSE courses," as he thought back to his grade school days and some of the memorable tyrants he endured. Just then there was a tap on his shoulder and the gray-haired guy, who by now was wearing a name tag that said Marvin, but to which he had already appended the word "Marvelous," whispered in his ear, "she's all bark and no bite. Trust me." Armed with that tip, Christian began to plod, along with the rest of his group, through the minutiae of working for the Federal Government. How to use a government credit card and how not to use a government credit card. How to sign in to a location and how to sign out. How to do an expense account, how to compute vacation time, how to make a sexual harassment complaint, it just went on and on, day after day. In fact, it took a week just to get through the intricacies of the federal system, not a word was spoken about the job they were expected to do. As the second week began Miss Rowena Altschufer turned the proceedings over to a woman she introduced as Becky Overstreet who, in turn, informed them that she held a PhD in social work, but not to call her 'Doctor.' She said her job would be to lead them through the coursework that would end with their certification as Seniors Pathway Guides, but not to confuse that with a Senior Pathway Guide. Since this was the government, they would be starting out at Junior Seniors Pathway Guides, and she hoped that was clear to everyone. At that, she broke the group into sections of three and distributed scripts. Her instructions were to select one person to be the Senior Citizen, one to be the Guide and one to monitor the process and offer suggestions. It was Role Playing 101 in spades and, happy to be out of the lecture mode the group noisily reassembled around the large room in groups of three. As luck would have it, Christian, Marvin and his dining room friend, Cheryl ended up together. "Now listen up," said Marvin. "This week they'll be watching us and trying to weed out the misfits so watch your step. Stick to the script, look enthusiastic even if you're bored to tears. Don't get too inventive, just learn the routine. Remember, initiative is not rewarded here, it's the ones who look like they won't make waves, won't cause trouble, that will be rewarded, and that's where we're goin'." And they did. No matter how strange the scenario, they stuck to it. After a while it even became not only predictable, but interesting. Christian began to dope out the plan, which was to counsel older folks on what choices they needed to make as they reached the end of their lives. Things such as wills and advance directives and how to dispose of assets. For the most part it was pretty good stuff and he could see himself 30 or 40 years off welcoming a visit from a government counselor.

Oddly, as the week went on their numbers began to decrease. One day two souls were missing, another day it was three. One attendee even asked. "Where is Julie?" "Sent home" was the terse response from Overstreet, and that was that. No one asked again. 7 With two days left in the course Overstreet changed focus. She sat on a low stool and gathered the now-diminished class around her, much like you would see in a third grade classroom. In a quiet, almost conspiratorial tone, she said, "now we come to the crux of this course. It's sensitive and I'm happy to tell you that you all have passed the background checks and have clearance to hear this. I don't have to tell you that what you're about to learn is both secret and confidential and the penalties for disclosing what I'm about to tell you are severe. Am I clear?” There was a low buzz of conversation and a group nod of assent. "It all began a couple of years ago when the bean counters in Washington noticed that the Social Security numbers were getting out of line. You all do know by now that Social Security has, from its start, been nothing but a huge Ponzi scheme. That the Social Security taxes you pay aren't meant for your retirement, instead that money is used to pay the people who are already retired. In short, your money is already spent. Your only hope is that there will be enough people working when you retire to pay you your benefits. It's always been that way," she explained. "When the numbers began to get out of line it meant there were more old, retired, people than there were young working people to support them. That caused a lot of turmoil and the policy wonks began to look for a solution. They tried easing immigration, but the only ones who came were low wage Mexicans and they had already figured out how to game the system without paying any taxes. Then, someone in the White House, came up with the bright idea of getting rid of the seniors. This was met with scorn because it sounded like what the Nazis did. But then someone came up with the bright idea that it wouldn't be anything like that if the retirees themselves came up with the idea of euthanizing themselves. That's where you come in. "This program was developed very much on the Q. T. and you were carefully selected to carry it out. You probably aren't aware, but you've been put through a battery of psychological tests, your attitudes were dissected, even your relationships have been probed while you've been here. We think you have the right stuff to carry out this mission. Right now it's a pilot project, and it's on your shoulders to either prove or disprove whether it works." This time the room broke into tumult. Two persons tried to walk out but were intercepted by FBI types who swiftly whisked them away to who-knows-where. When things settled down Overstreet continued. "In the next two days we'll be turning you into some of the most sophisticated manipulators of human feelings this nation has ever seen. You'll learn how to play on the fears, especially the fears, and aspirations of people who are generations older than you, and you will have the tools to convince them that the only sensible thing will be to take advantage of the government's kind and generous offers. And, we'll be giving you the tools and the experience to carry out your mission with kindness and compassion. "Quietly and with no fanfare the government has built what we like to call Pathway Houses. You'll

learn more about these later, in fact, some of you might end up living in one. That's enough for today. I know you'll want to digest what I've told you so we'll pick up here tomorrow. You can talk among yourselves, vent if you want to, leave the program if you feel you have to, but just remember you are the cream of the crop and if you don't do this then we'll find others, maybe not as qualified, to do it. See you tomorrow." When they got to the dining hall that night Christian, Marvin and Cheryl were engaged in hot argument. Cheryl, her face almost crimson with rage, insisted she was not going to have anything more to do with "this crazy program." She promised as soon as dinner was over she was packing and getting out. "And just how do you plan to do that?" asked Marvin. There are no buses except the ones the Feds run, no taxies even. Are you that good of a hitchhiker out here in the backwoods of Maryland? And, by the way, have you noticed the traffic lately? Maybe two cars a day.” "I could walk," she said. "I saw a sign coming in that said the nearest town was two miles away." "Yep," I know the place, grinned Marv. "I was here when they turned out the whole town for the opening of a MacDonalds. The mayor said now they were officially 'on the map.' No, I don't think that's much of a choice, maybe you ought to just cool your jets and see this thing through. You can always jump ship when you get back to civilization." Although she was grumpy about it, Cheryl acquiesced. Christian, on the other hand, said he was eager to hear what the program entailed. He wasn't necessarily ecstatic, but he wasn't ready to bolt either. "Yeah, let's play the hand," he said to no one in particular. At that they arrived at the dining hall entrance and were greeted with a hand-printed sign, "Security Meeting In Progress. Dining Postponed Until 7:00" "What the hell," they said, almost in chorus then they began peering into the hall through the small windows inset in the doors. "Feebs" said Marvin, stinkin' FBI. I'd recognize the type a mile away, and they're in there planning how to handle any dissidents that might crop up. Let's look around back." The trio circled the brick building just as a light fall of snow began. "See, I told you," said Marvin, pointing to six white vans parked nose to tail behind the dining hall. Each bore a distinctive Federal license plate. "That's who would have picked you up if you started walking or hitching, Cheryl, and believe me, you wouldn't have been happy with the destination. Face it, guys, we're here for the duration, like it or not." By the time they made their way through the snow to the front of the building the sign was gone and the doors were open. They loaded their plates and just as they had for the past week and a half, occupied a table off in a corner of the vast room. "The way I figure it," said Christian, "they've winnowed out the fatties, the loafers, the ones who were desperate for a job, so they're really stuck with us. I don't think at this point there's any way to fail this course, so I'm planning to just sit back, absorb what they have to say, and see where it leads." The other two agreed and Marvin even suggested they show a bit of enthusiasm. When classes began the next day Overstreet seemed more relaxed, almost as if she'd weathered a storm and was now safe on the other side. Again, the role playing began, albeit with smaller groups. This time it was pairs, one playing the older person, the other playing the agent. Overstreet flitted from group to group, listening to the dialogue, then joining in. "You've probably noticed," she said, "that the scripts

are now narrowing the focus. No matter what the problem the Senior might have you're empathetic, but you also have a solution, and that solution ALWAYS leads to the Pathway House option. But remember, even though you might make the suggestion, the decision always has to be the clients', but there's more to it than that." At that Overstreet jumped up and went to the head of the classroom, "Listen up," she said. "You're all doing well with your simulations but I'm noticing a little hesitancy when it comes to suggesting the Pathway Option. I haven't told you this before because, frankly, I wasn't sure how many folks would survive this far. Now that I know, and you guys are going to be the core group of this project, I can add a little icing to the cake. "Up to now your motivation, I'm assuming, was pretty much altruistic -- you wanted to do good things for deserving people with not much thought about yourselves. The good news is that the program has a few rewards built in. For each person you bring into the Pathway program, and who completes the journey, you will receive a $400 bonus. For a couple it's $800. "Now let me explain these numbers. It isn't as if your government has suddenly gotten a generous streak because it hasn't. Numbers are at the heart of this program. "We've found that not only are there too many old people overtaxing the system, but we've also found that in the last months of their lives they are terribly expensive. Let me be specific. The Medicare cost for the final year of life averages $96,000 per person. That's including their regular benefits plus medicines, doctor and hospital or nursing home fees and sometimes even heroic surgeries that buy them maybe a month or two of life. What this program is meant to do is gently intervene in that last year. It is meant to provide relief to the system by reducing the numbers drastically, so it only makes sense to reward those who are making it happen. Besides, the Pathway House program provides the seniors a, dare-I-say-it, pleasant, painless death in advance of what we know is an agonizing, unpleasant one. That's it in a nutshell, any comments?" "You're, you're paying us to get people to agree to have themselves killed," shrieked a skinny black woman in the back of the room. "That's, that's awful, you'll burn in Hell." Marvin nudged Christian, "watch this." And, at that very moment the classroom doors popped open, two beefy men, obviously federal agents, swept in, hoisted the lady by her armpits and whisked her out. "Next stop a white van then a rubber room," whispered Marvin. Un-fazed, Overstreet looked at her students, muttering, "we knew there would be someone who had second or third thoughts. Shall we continue? “Once you get into the Pathway Houses themselves you'll see it isn't anything like that. Yes, people die, that's the whole idea, but they do it with dignity and when they choose. You'll see." 8 The next day was Graduation Day, if you could call it that. No caps and gowns, but there were Official Identification Badges, handsome framed certificates that proclaimed the holder to be a Certified Pathway Guide (Level II) along with assorted government paraphernalia. Sadly, there were no logo-ed polo shirts or jackets, but considering the business the graduates were soon to be in that made sense.

“Wouldn't we look great in Pathway Guide jackets, why people would stop us on the street and ask if we were some sort of super Boy Scout instead of your local merchant of death,” quipped Marvin who actually drew a laugh from some of the grads. “You will notice among your paperwork a set of travel authorizations,” announced Overstreet. “Later this afternoon you'll clear out of your rooms and assemble outside of Building C, there, buses will take you to your respective airports – some will go to Baltimore, others to Dulles, it all depends on where your first assignment is. We've tried to put compatible folks together since you'll be working together for at least a year. We haven't worked out the rotations yet, but we do know that we'll either have to move you around as new facilities are completed or give you time off to decompress somewhere. “Let me be the first to congratulate you on finishing this long and difficult course. I have no doubts that you are well prepared to lead the agency, and the nation, into a new era of social betterment. You can expect to hear from me, at least by telephone, to see how you are doing. I'll expect to hear good reports. You have a list in your packets of numbers to call should you run into a situation that baffles you. Remember, you are not alone in this mission, you have backup help available from a host of agencies in the Federal Family. “Just one more thing. You won't be flying blind. When you get to your assigned stations you'll be getting lists of prospects. Be aware, these are people who have been identified as being in their last year or less of life. Call it low-hanging fruit if you want. These are people whose lives have become living hells. Believe me, when you approach them with an opportunity to join the Pathway Project they'll welcome you with open arms.” “Now, good luck and good hunting,” said Overstreet sounding almost like a cheerleader. “Go and do good works.” Cheryl, Christian and Marvelous Marvin extricated themselves from the scrum of other graduates and headed toward the dorms. Once outside they began to compare notes, especially the Station Orders. Overstreet, for once, was true to her word. All three had been assigned to not only the same region, but to the same part of the region, which happened to be Northeastern Pennsylvania. Christian was to both live and work at Pathway House #5, which was located just outside Wilkes-Barre and Scranton in the Pocono Mountains. Marvin was assigned to the Scranton Field Office and Cheryl to the Wilkes-Barre Field office, both of which fed clients into House Number Five. “Enemaville,” grumped Marvin. “Northeastern Pennsylvania is where they'll put the tube when they want to give the world an enema.” “I take it you've been there,” said Christian. “Couple of times,” replied Marvin. “Couldn't wait to get out. The place is pocked with slag heaps from the coal mining, the people are clannish as hell and when it snows everything just stops. Aside from that it isn't bad if you like to drink a lot; bars on every corner, and the Italian restaurants are the real thing. Aside from that, it's a dump. “I don't care what you say about the place,” chirped Cheryl. “It's my first assignment and I plan to make the best of it. Besides, we'll all be within a couple of miles of each other. Isn't that worth a lot? It is to me”

On that the three were in agreement and they went to their dorm rooms to pack for the impending trip. The government, obviously wanting to capitalize on the gung-ho feelings of the new grads was giving them no time to decompress, they were to use the weekend for travel and were to report to work at 8 am the following Monday. The buses came, they retraced their steps back to Baltimore's airport and from there it was a 45 minute flight on a prop-driven Dash-8 to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton airport. The flight in did reveal the slag heaps, but it also showed them the stark beauty of the mountainous terrain. They split up in separate rental cars at the airport. Cheryl to Wilkes-Barre, Marvin to Scranton where they both found weekly rates at decent motels. Christian had a much longer drive up into the mountains and it was early evening when he first saw his new home, Pathway House #5. It loomed up out of the trees like a midevil castle, all that was missing was a moat and turrets. The arched entry hit a pair of heavy, oak doors. Out front was a tiny sign, “Welcome to Pathway.” This was to be home. 9 Christian pulled open the left door and found himself inside a vaulted entrance hall, richly paneled in walnut. A small door to his right bore the legend “office.” He rapped twice and it was opened by a stout man in a white shirt, his pants held up by suspenders. He looked at Christian through rimless spectacles, cleared his throat and said, “You must be Christian.” “And you must be Mr. Risenko.” Christian remembered the name from one of the assignment forms that identified Risenko as the administrator of Pathway House No. 5. “One and the same,” said the man, “welcome aboard. It's late, have you eaten?” Christian assured him he'd grabbed a bite on his way into the mountains. “Okay, well you have your own quarters here, up in the turret, so you might as well get settled and in the morning I'll have someone give you the tour. Right now, as you can see, our census is zero and we're still in training mode, but I'm sure you'll be changing that next week,” said Risenko as he led Christian out of the office, across the entry hall and up a flight, then two then three flights, of circular stairs. All the while Risenko chatted over his shoulder, telling Christian the furniture was all government issue, but “not bad” and that the view was something spectacular. He was right, as he peered out of one of the curved windows he found himself looking across the tops of the Pocono Mountains. “I think I can see all the way to the Delaware river,” he mused. “Not quite,” said Risenko, “but far enough. This place was originally built as a hunting lodge by a beer baron from Wilkes-Barre. He didn't have a lot of taste, but he did have a lot of money and he liked to impress his friends. The government got it after he forgot to pay his taxes for something like 20 years. Now we have the view and he has a six-by-nine cell somewhere.” Risenko showed Christian his quarters which included a bedroom, attached bath and a small office complete with phone and computer. It was much nicer than what he experienced at the training center, and Christian wasted no time in unpacking his bag, hanging his clothes and arranging his toiletries in the marble-paneled bath. Next morning, right at 7:30 his phone rang and a female voice told him breakfast would be served in 20 minutes in the main dining room. Christian showered, shaved and scrambled down the circular stairway just in time to see Risenko leaving his office and heading across the entry hall. The two joined up and entered a dining room paneled in the same rich walnut as the rest of the place. There were menus, linen tablecloths and napkins folded into little fans stuck in the water glasses and, of all things, waitresses dressed in black and white uniforms. It was nothing like any government anywhere. “We expect to

make an impression on our guests,” said Risenko, “and I think this place fills the bill nicely. When we finish here why don't you stop in my office? I have a list of prospects I'm sure you'll want to get busy with. Besides, we need some people in here, I'm getting kind of tired just rattling around with nothing to do. Damn, I almost forgot: the tour. Alfie, my assistant, will show you around.” “Alfie” turned out to be a five-foot, blonde, stacked, and friendly as she pulled up a seat at their table and said “Hi.” The tour started in the institutional sized kitchen, stainless steel everywhere, then Alfie turned down a hallway into what was obviously the residential area. It looked a bit like a high class hotel, but when she opened one of the doors the living space showed itself to be more, much more than that. The door opened into a small, but tastefully furnished living room with the couch and wing chair oriented toward a large flat screen TV hidden in an armoire. Off the living room was a bedroom and bath, both luxuriously appointed. The lighting was soft and the place just oozed comfort. “We want our guests, no matter how brief their stay, to feel right at home,” explained Alfie. “The bedrooms have either single or double beds, depending on whether we get singles or couples. Now, let me show you the neat stuff.” At that she approached one of the made-up single beds, reached beneath the foot board and with an audible click tripped a hidden lever. The bed began to rise and four large wheels slid into position, one at each corner. As if by magic it had converted itself into a hospital gurney. Then, from a closet Alfie pulled out a Fiberglas contraption which she plopped on top of the bed, instantly converting it into a perfect replica of a food trolley. “We don't want to freak out any of the living guests when one of our clients passes and we have to get them quickly into the medical and mortuary areas. This way when we push the bed through the halls it just looks as if we're delivering food to someone who can't make it to the dining room. All of the techs have been trained on the system although I will admit it kind of freaks me out ---camouflaging dead people as food,” she grimaced. Then Alfie opened a bureau drawer and took out a beige box and placed it on a table. “This is the machine,” she explained. “It's one of two methods we have.” “How does it work?” asked Christian. “Well, first of all, it's pre-loaded by the pharmacy department so our techs don't have to know anything about dosages or anything like that. It also is pretty much automatic. I do know the main ingredient is the kind of anesthetic they use in operating rooms, in fact it's the same stuff that killed Michael Jackson. All that happens is that one of our techs takes out this little butterfly catheter, finds a vein and presses this button. Next thing, the client gets very drowsy and is asleep in under a minute. Then the machine monitors blood flow and such through this little finger cuff. It keeps ramping up the dosage and the person goes deeper and deeper asleep. Of course, they don't know any of this because, well, they're asleep. “As the drugs flow the breathing slows and mental activity drops until eventually the brain goes completely asleep, it forgets to tell the lungs to breathe and the heart to pump, and about that time this green light comes on. It signals they're gone and then the floor techs come in and do the bed trick and it's off to pathology. Simple as that. Most people these days are used to getting I.V.s so we shouldn't hear many objections. In case there are, we have Plan B., which is this, “ she said, pulling out what looked like a bottle of very expensive brandy.

“What it is is a cocktail of Nembutal and VSOP brandy. We mix it up in a six ounce glass with lots of crushed ice and tell them to drink it down. Around here they say 'chug-a-lug'. Fact is, the Nembutal works so fast that sometimes they fall asleep before they finish the cocktail and in that case we just hook 'em up to the machine. Either way, it's just a very, very deep sleep that ends in, um, well you know, and it's saving the government thousands. Now, let's head for pathology” Alfie led the way down the corridor to an elevator which took them down one floor to a white-tiled room equipped with what looked like a complete operating suite minus the anesthetic equipment. She explained, “the way the program is set up, each client has had a complete health evaluation with an eye on what organs can be reused. We don't take the hearts because they are filled with potentially fatal blood, but there are other organs that can be recycled through the transplant program. We can flush livers and kidneys so they can be reused, corneas from the eyes are expected to be reusable, as well as a lot of other body parts. As you might know, this program is designed not only to save money in end-oflife care, but to maybe even make a little. We try not to waste anything.” Next stop was the crematorium. It was a mechanical marvel that awed Christian. Instead of the usual blue-paneled cremation retorts there was a bank of industrial size machines. Downstream of that was what looked like a power plant, replete with turbines, transformers and switchgear. “Here's where it gets really interesting,” said Alfie. “If you'll look over there you'll see coming through the wall that big, blue pipe. We're located not far from a huge deposit of the Marcellus Shale, which is a reservoir of natural gas – hundreds of years worth. The gas comes almost direct from the wells to us under about 400 pounds of pressure. We reduce it to about 40 pounds, which gives us the ability to get these retorts just about white hot. I've seen the tests and they're awesome. “Running through the burning chambers are a whole bunch of pipes that carry water. It's flashed into steam almost instantly and carried off to those big superheater drums over there. The steam then runs the turbines and they turn the generators. We generate not only all the power we use here, but sell a bunch of it to the Penn-Jersey interconnect, which explains the substation you'll see just down the hill. “This was all worked out by the Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA and the G.S.A. They found that there's a lot of energy in a human body, so when you add the bodies it increases the power generation by about 10 percent. Of course all the gasses go through scrubbers and they exit the facility through a cleverly hidden smoke pipe that runs up through the turret. Oh, sorry, I forgot you're living in the turret. Well, it shouldn't bother you unless we get a real fatty. They tell me that fat people generate a lot of soot when they burn and the sooty smoke can clog up the scrubbers, so they have to inject some gas to burn it off. About all you'll hear is a 'whoosh' now and then up there in your turret. The only thing that can be seen outside is the heat waves and sometimes just a little sulfur smell. The EPA is very happy with us. “When we really get ramped up the bodies will come here wrapped in combustible shrouds. There's an automatic charge and discharge system that takes the bodies into and out of the retorts in about 20 minutes. Each body has a ceramic tag which withstands the heat so that when they come out all there is is mostly white hot bones and the disk. That way, people who want their relatives' ashes are assured they get the right ones. Oh, here's Walter, he's the denier, so he's in charge of the bones.” Walter, a thin wisp of a man with a fringe of white hair, was clad in what looked like asbestos gloves that went to his elbows, a similar apron that came to his neck and rimless glasses. He took over the

tour. “When the bodies come out 'o the furnace they're glowing hot, so's I use this long handled shovel to scoop 'em up and put 'em in that grinder over there. It's got tungsten teeth so the heat don't bother it much. Press the button, put the ceramic pot under the chute, and in about three minutes out comes Charlie, just a stream of powder. They call 'em ashes, but powder's what it is. Then I use these tongs to shift the pot on to one of those two pallets. One is for ashes that're claimed, the other is for us to dispose of. Of course, I make sure the proper ceramic disks are on the proper pots.” “Let's step outside now,” said Alfie, leading Christian out a steel door. Just a few steps behind the building was what looked like new construction; a large rectangular structure, about three stories tall, its face lined with row after row of small doors. “This is the columbarium, where we put the ashes. Each door has slots where we put the occupant's names and it's all automatic,” she said. “It takes about five years for the pots to make it from this end, through the building and out the other side. We do this just in case a long-lost relative shows up and wants the ashes. At the end the pots are automatically dumped into the compost that's been gathering in the middle of the square, it's all the refuse from the kitchens. It's all mixed together, packaged and sold to farmers and gardeners as fertilizer. You see, we don't waste anything. " Christian agreed and thought to himself that the government could easily afford to pay him the bonuses he was promised and then some. “Well, thanks for the tour. I'll probably take a walk around, stretch my legs a bit and get ready for work Monday morning. I can see I have my work cut out for me supplying the raw materials for this operation. “Oh, what's this,” he asked, pointing to a free form silver star inset at the very top of the columbarium.” “That's the star that marks the end of the Pathway, “ said Alfie. “If you look you'll find little stars throughout the building, each one a little bigger. They mark the Pathway itself. It starts with a living, but hurting human being at the front door and leads inexorably through the stages of leaving this world the government way. Face it, Christian, we're all gonna' end up as fertilizer of one kind or another someday, it's just that this way is more efficient and, I think, more humane than the old way. At first you might have some convincing to do to get folks to come here, but once this program gets rolling I foresee lines out the door and those retorts running 24/7. It was my pleasure taking you around and I hope we'll see more of each other. Oh, by the way, just down the road there's a place called Pete's Place. We sometimes get together there for a drink after work, maybe I'll see you there.” 10 Cheryl was deep into her first day of work in a sparse agency office in a former bank building in Wilkes-Barre when a note popped up on her computer screen. It was headed “Appointments” and on it was a single entry for 2:30 that afternoon. It told her she was to meet with Mark and Ellen Flisk and it gave an address in the south end of the city. A quick trip to Google gave her a map and just to make sure she called the number listed to confirm the appointment. She told the man who answered, who identified himself as Mark, that she was a Pathway Guide from the Healthy Americans Program and that she would be at their door at 2:30, which was agreeable to Mark. When she arrived at the modest, two family duplex a thin, gray haired woman in a loose print dress

answered the door and invited her in. Once Cheryl, Mark and Ellen had arranged themselves around the kitchen table much to Cheryl's surprise Mark blurted out that he hoped she could help them escape their misery. He explained his ailments and Ellen's complaints and their general poor state of life. “It just isn't fun living anymore,” he said. “Ellen and me, we've been together 42 years, good times and bad, but what we're goin' through now is the worst.” Cheryl picked up her cue just as she'd been taught – all questions ended with the Pathway House solution. This conversation was beginning like one of the scripts back at school. She commiserated with them, showed the proper amount of empathy and, finally, explained the new government program called Pathway. They both were eager to hear about it after Cheryl told them there was a Pathway House not far away up in the Poconos. She explained that it was a program was designed only for people like themselves who had reached the end of their rope. She said it wasn't a nursing home, but more like a fancy hotel. Pulling a file folder from her satchel she laid out the paperwork for them. The government would allow them to pass on their house and cars to their children, or anyone else they designated tax free. Their debts would be settled, everything would be taken care of, all they had to do was sign a few papers and understand clearly that they were entering the program completely voluntarily. “What do we have to do to get all this?” asked Mark, “die?” “Exactly,” said Cheryl. The couple looked at each other, seemingly stunned. Then Mark said, “well, you said it was for people who had reached the end of their rope, and we surely have. Whatdya say Ellie, should we just pack it in? No more troubles, no more woes.” Hesitantly Ellen replied, “you know I've always done what you said Mark, and you've never let me down. If you think this is the way to go then I'm with you.” Cheryl was flabbergasted at just how easy it was to get two people to agree to let the government put them to death. She also thought it was the easiest $800 she had ever made. She also used her cellphone to call Christoper at House Number Five to arrange for a van to come for the Flisks. Then came the paperwork. 11 The plain, white van, with the discreet Pathway House No. 5 logo low on the driver's door pulled into the port-cochere at the stately mansion, as Christian bounded from the wide, stone porch to open the doors for the Flisks. He escorted them into a small office off the opulent entrance hall, sat them down at a small table and began to go through the paperwork contained in the file Cheryl had sent with them. “You folks do understand how this works,” asked Christian, receiving a positive answer from Mark and Ellen. “And you realize this is completely voluntary on your part. Nobody has twisted your arms to sign,” he said. Both agreed. “Now here's another voluntary part Cheryl may not have told you about,” he explained. “You will be our guests here for a maximum of a week. Everything is free, as I said, you're our guests. If at the end of the week you decide not to go through with the program we'll take you back home and everything will be just like it was, but with one catch. The government will bill you for your stay here. Fair enough? They agreed that, indeed, it was a fair deal. With that, Christian

escorted them to the suite he'd picked out for them. Awe showed in their eyes as Mark and Ellie looked at their new digs. The walnut paneling, the sumptuous double bed, the kitchen and the huge flat screen TV. Christian explained that they didn't have to stay in their room, but could take advantage of the community spaces, the main dining room, the game room and the library. He also explained that when they were ready to take their journey down the Pathway all they had to say to any staff member was, “It's Time,” and everything would be taken care of. The first day and night of their stay was one wonder after another. Considering the life they had led in the bleak coal town the splendor of the mansion provided one surprise after another. A pool table with no rips in the fabric, a dining room that produced surf 'n turf without batting an eye, the soft double bed with high-count cotton sheets. It was all just too wonderful for words. By the second day they were taking their surroundings pretty much for granted, but then reality set in. Mark began to feel poorly, he was all but immobilized. Ellen too began to feel the pains of old age. They were so uncomfortable they took to their bed right after lunch. By mid afternoon Mark turned to Ellen and wondered if maybe it was time to pull down the curtain on their lives. She agreed in an instant. In the day and a half the Flisks were enjoying all that Pathway House No. 5 had to offer Christian's life underwent a complete change. Instead of his plans to shepherd the Flisks through their final hours he found himself constantly on the phone. Marvin in Scranton was sending four new clients. Cheryl had lined up three more and somehow a half dozen people had gotten the phone number and were calling to make reservations. There was even a walk-up who just appeared and knocked on the door. The house was filling fast. It was as if there was a pent-up demand and the word was spreading like wildfire. Risenko, the administrator, found himself flooded with requisitions for more food and drink. He, in turn, notified Walter at the crematorium that it might just be time to switch from batch to production mode and Walter, in turn, had to notify the electrical grid managers to expect more electricity from his generators. Luckily, everyone's training had been thorough and they easily shifted gears to deal with the rapidly filling facility. When Kristy, one of the dining room staff went in to the Flisk's room to tell them dinner was about to be served she saw a hastily scrawled note on the bedside table of the sleeping couple. “It's time” is all it said, but that was enough to send Kristy scurrying to find one of the death techs. Azriel, the on-duty tech with the strange name was a matronly soul who spent 30 years in nursing before taking the Pathway job, gently shook the pair awake. “I see this note,” she said, holding the note before the couple, “does it mean what I think it means?” “Yep,” said Mark, “un huh” said Ellen. “No, I have to hear you say it,” said Azriel, remembering the protocol she had been taught. Almost in chorus Mark and Ellen replied, “yes, It's Time.” “Well then,” said Azriel, “have you decided which method, the 'cocktail' or the I.V.?” “We've both been in hospitals so much that one more I.V. won't make a bit of difference,” said Mark as he pulled up his pajama sleeve. Ellen bared her arm as well and Azriel opened the dresser drawer and

pulled out two of the machines. She unclasped the lines and deftly inserted the I. V.s and put the finger monitor cuffs on. “There, you're all set for your journey down the pathway, sleep tight.” Mark and Ellen instinctively cuddled one another as an overwhelming sense of drowsiness settled over them. They began to experience a soft, embracing warmth, as all sounds and sensations began to disappear from their consciousness. It was a very deep sleep and the machine relentlessly pumped it's lethal chemical into their bodies. It worked in rhythm with the heartbeats it sensed through the finger cuffs. After each slowing heartbeat the machine injected just a little more fluid. Finally, it reached the point where their brains were completely asleep, so asleep that the autonomic centers that told the heart to beat and the lungs to breathe began to shut down. All told it took less than 20 minutes, and when Azriel checked them a half hour later she saw both machines displaying steady green lights. It took her just a minute to take the fiberglass lid from the closet, affix it to the bed and trip the lever that turned the double bed into a gurney. Then it was into the hall and down to the large elevator that took the first clients of Pathway House No. 5 down to the Harvesting Suite. There they were stripped of their night clothes and placed on what were a combination operating table and morgue slab, all sterile, of course. The team of surgeons opened the bodies. Mark's pancreas, liver and several saphenous veins were removed, Ellen's pancreas was taken as were her kidneys. The pancreases would be shipped to a new government lab that would extract the insulin hormone from the Islets of Langerhorn as part of a new program that would supply human insulin to diabetics at a fraction of the cost and with the hope that by using the human form of the hormone the inactive pancreas of the diabetic would be stimulated back into action. In short, it was a program designed to cure diabetes. The other organs were packed in ice and swiftly shipped to transplant centers. Once the bodies had been disassembled, they were slipped into combustible shrouds and placed on the conveyor system which exited through a wall and went directly to the crematory retort charging system. Walter pushed and tugged so the bodies were exactly centered on their steel pallets and pushed a button that moved the first pallet into the retort. He watched the power meter which was registering an output of 35.2 megawatts from the facilities generators. Watching through the view port he saw the white-hot flames touch Mark's feet and almost instantly the shroud and the flesh were vaporized. All that was left was a small pile of white foot bones. And so it went as the body inched through the searing hot chamber. The power meter edged up just a tenth of a megawatt. “Not much, but at least it's something,” mused Walter. Ellen contributed just a tad more power to the electric grid when it was her turn. Just two hours elapsed from the time of the I.V. insertion to the moment Walter raked the still-smoking bones into his grinding machine. Ten minutes after that there were two urns, each with its own ceramic tag identifying the contents, on a pallet ready to be placed in a niche. 12 Risenko and Christian were huddled in Risenko's office trying to deal with the logistics of the influx of people anxious to take advantage of the new government service. The maximum bed capacity of Pathway House No. 5 was just 56 souls and the planners in Washington never expected the facility to reach that number until at least its second year of operation. Instead, the place was full and they had begun to compile a waiting list. It seemed that every other person over 65 had come to see the Pathway as the best way to exit lives they saw as one-way streets to nowhere.

“I think I see one way to increase our production,” said Risenko. “How about if we take one of the rooms and divide it in half, then make the two halves individual day treatment rooms? That way people who were in a hurry and didn't care about the nice food and nice rooms could be accommodated almost on a walk-in basis and we could just about double the number of people we could handle. Sure, we'd probably have to hire a helper for Walter and get a couple more docs for the organ harvesting operation, but aside from that the equipment can handle the increased load.” Christian, who was becoming more of an assistant to Risenko than a Pathway Guide II, agreed. He wondered at the success of the program. What fascinated him was the mind-switch that had taken place in the population, at least the population of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Years back when Universal Healthcare was first debated there was a great hue and cry that end of life planning meant 'death panels' which would decide if Gramps' life was worth saving. The 'death panels' never came to pass. Instead, with just a few incentives, a few tax breaks, the government found itself overwhelmed with senior citizens who were self-selecting themselves to die at the time and place of their own choosing. It was almost as big a response as the Power Ball lottery. None of this was lost on the bureaucrats in Washington either. Government statisticians saw a huge drop in the Medicare account. Census Bureau folks noticed a significant rise in the death rate coupled with a drop in the average age of American citizens. This showed that the tide was turning and America, at least statistically, was getting younger. The Social Security accountants, projecting their numbers, saw the imbalance between the workers and the retirees reaching equilibrium in just two years. All of this signaled that America was getting younger, smarter and more productive. If the trend continued the country's slide into third-world status would be halted and, in fact, reversed. Christian had been doing some projecting on his own. Calculating the numbers of folks who walked their final pathway, coupled with his bonuses, he figured that at the present rate he would be making in excess of six large figures in his first year of government employ, something he never expected in his wildest dreams. Eventually Christian and Risenko agreed on what they called “the day trip plan.” They would contact those listed on the growing waiting list and offer them an immediate spot if they could agree to a oneday's passage. Immediately they got 27 takers and the Day Trip rooms were put in operation almost before the paint dried on the walls. The atmosphere inside Pathway House No. 5 was universally upbeat, almost like senior citizens on a cruise ship. Food and drink were plentiful, there was lots to do and, strangely, no one seemed to notice that the cast of characters, except for the staff, was constantly changing. New friends were made, and then they were gone. By design, undertakers and ministers were not made part of the Pathway program, but the ministers especially made such an outcry that a small chapel was constructed well out of sight of the main buildings. Periodically a client would ask for a memorial service or a funeral and those wishes were granted, after a fashion. It usually consisted of a preacher and a pot of ashes and one or two mourners. What the dearly departeds didn't realize was that they had outlived most of their peers and their relatives were scattered all over the country. The staff didn't mind, mostly it was picking up wilted floral tributes and tossing them in the compost place.

13 Six months later things had changed. Ritsko retired and Christian was in his place. He still lived in the turret, but now Cheryl was with him as his assistant and they were a couple expecting a child. Periodically their sleep would be interrupted by the 'whoosh' of the gas cleaners in the crematorium exhaust scrubbers, but aside from that it was business as usual. Pathway House No. 5 remained full with only a strange thing happening every month or so. For instance, one month a disheveled man appeared as one of the day-trippers. He went straight to the bar and proceeded to get himself roaring drunk. About sunset he said “It's time for one of those super cocktails you folks have.” He was quickly escorted, stumbling, to the day trip procedure room where he was given a six ounce tumbler of the brandy and Nembutal mixture which he quaffed in a quick gulp, banging his glass down and asking for another. The astonished staff provided him a second which he finished in a gulp. With that he slumped in his recliner and was dead within 30 seconds. It was known that alcohol enhanced the action of the Nembutal, but the staff never realized just how much. The man had a speedy trip to the body disassembly room, but, sadly, the surgeons found that none of his organs were suitable. His lungs were brown, almost black, from a lifetime of smoking. His liver was chirrotic from a lifetime of drinking. His heart showed signs of past 'silent' heart attacks and the rest of his organs looked like those of a 90 year old. “Sure gives lie to the old saying 'drink hearty, die young, make a handsome corpse,'” said the surgeon as he flipped the useless body onto the mechanized pallet that would, in minutes, carry it into the fiery depths of the cremation machine. “I wonder if he'll have a blue glow when the alcohol burns off,” mused the surgeon. Walter noted only a tiny blip of electrical production when the body was in full conflagration. As administrator, Christian noticed subtle changes in the regulations; the age limit for admission had been lowered and some of the criteria had been reduced. Once this happened, Marvin had the bright idea of canvassing the state's Death Row prisoners. Perhaps some of them would be interested in ending their torment sooner. The idea caught on not only with the Death Row inmates, but with the 'lifer' population. For one solid week the Pathway House was closed to civilian clients as van after prison van shuttled inmates to their final walk. And so it went, with special days for residents of mental institutions, handicapped days, even days for would-be suicides. In short, business was good to excellent at Pathway House No. 5. 14 Not only was business good, but things had settled down into a routine. With all the wrinkles worked out of the system Christian was able to devote more of his time to the people who were passing, literally, through his facility. He had the time, so he began talking to more and more of them. One Tuesday he noticed an elderly gentleman sitting in the library and gazing thoughtfully out the window at the snow-covered lawn, so Christopher pulled up a chair next to him and engaged him in conversation. He asked him his age, which was 71, and he absently wondered what his childhood had been like. "So glad you asked," said the man, whose name was Virgil Szymanski. "If you've done your math you'd know that I was an after-depression child. Born in 1938, so I guess my folks decided the depression was over and they could afford a kid. Of course not long after I was born World War II broke out and my old man was called to Washington." He then explained that growing up in wartime Washington, D.C. was heaven for a precocious

youngster. "Our neighbor on one side was head of the National Capitol Parks and on the other side lived the guy who was third in command of the FBI, he had a son my age. You can imagine that when we went into D.C., we lived in suburban Arlington, Virginia, we visited the FBI and got the VIP tour. I must have my fingerprints on file 500 times and they always took us to the firing range. Can you imagine how much fun it is for a 6-year-old kid to fire a Thompson machine gun for as long as he wanted? Gad, it was a blast. "The other neighbor got us tickets to everything. Heck, somewhere there's a picture of my mother and me on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial with Franklin D. Roosevelt at the podium dedicating it. I never really liked the Jefferson, it was the Lincoln Memorial that got to me, even at that young age. Something about it, that giant stone man sitting in that giant stone chair....it was his hands that fascinated me, heavy, gnarled hands, the hands of a workman, not some effete politician. They broke the mold after old Honest Abe and more's the pity." Fascinated, Christian asked him about what it was like with the country completely mobilized for war. The old man thought a bit, stroked his chin and chuckled. "Yes, we had rationing and tincan drives and grease drives and all that. But let me tell you young man, most of it was a scam." "A scam?" said Christian. "How could that be? I've read about all the sacrifices the people made during the war and you say it was a scam. Explain please." The old man then proceeded to tell him a story about his own family. "My dad was a medium big deal. His title was Assistant Chief of Gasoline Rationing. You knew, of course, that gas was rationed?" "Yes, of course," Christian agreed. "Well, my old man's job was to go around the country and explain how we needed to ration gas so that there would be enough for our forces training in the U.S. and fighting in Europe. But all the while he was out their spewing the government line he knew there was no shortage of petroleum at all. The problem was that the German subs off our east coast were kicking our ass, sinking the tankers bringing the gas around the Gulf Coast and up the eastern seaboard. The shortage wasn't gas it was a shortage of gas shipping. Then they built the Big Inch and the Buckeye pipelines and the problem went away but they kept the rationing on. The whole idea was to keep the people convinced they were helping the war effort. It was about then that, young as I was, I realized the government would lie to its people in a heartbeat, and it's never stopped lying. "Look at this place. It's billed as a Seniors paradise, but it's really just a killing factory because we oldsters are now just inconvenient to have around. Yeah, it's nice and all, but both you and I know that by week's end I'll be dead and that's forever, and you'll still be here doing the government's dirty work. How's that make you feel sonny?" Christian thought about this a bit, nonplussed at just how accurately the old man had zeroed in on his own insecurities about his job. In fact, it wasn't the first time he'd thought about just how insidiously evil his job was. But at the same time his rational self kicked in and he remembered his training class when he was told the government could always find someone else to do his job. "Put it that way," answered Christian, "it could make me feel pretty bad, but put another way I can see

some positives. First of all, nobody's forced to come here and all I'm doing is providing a service. Secondly, it's a pretty good service -- we're completely green so our footprint on the environment is pretty positive. Finally, you're here, and if it wasn't for this program I never would have met you and learned things I never would have known. Can you tell me more? How about air raids and stuff?" The old man chuckled and seemed to settle back into his chair just a little deeper. "Well, kid, I guess you could say I was a little son-of-a-bitch back then. Still am come to think of it. Yeah, we used to have air raid drills. You had to go in your house and pull down the blackout curtains and there were air raid wardens who'd come and knock on your door if even a crack of light could be seen. One night I escaped from the house during an air raid drill and began to wander up and down the street. Sure enough, no lights to be seen. Then I was grabbed by this old guy in a white Air Raid Warden hat. In minutes I was back home, arrested by an Air Raid Warden, delivered to my old man with instructions to give me a beating. Never got the beating but they sure let me know I had been a bad boy. Guess I never had respect for authority then or now. Story of my life. “Then there was Eleanor Roosevelt...We had tickets to the funeral of some member of Roosevelt's cabinet and we were at Arlington National Cemetery. I was fascinated by the mechanism they used to lower the casket, you know, that chrome thing with straps. So I escaped from my mother and wiggled through the legs of the crowd and on hands and knees made it almost to the casket. Just then I was grabbed by the arm and dragged back. 'Young man, you sit right here,' said the old woman sitting in the front row. I spent the rest of the time sitting at the feet of Eleanor Roosevelt who handed me over to my mother when the festivities were over. “Washington in wartime was a great place and time for a kid. They used to bring ships up the Potomac and give tours and one time they put a captured German V-2 rocket on a flatbed and parked it in DuPont Circle. You could just go up and look at it. I remember the tip of it was like clear plastic and somebody told me that was the fuze that set it off. Neat stuff for a kid. And, you know what, I still remember my adddress...3714 First Road South, Arlington, Virginia. My mother made me memorize it in case I got lost. Hell, I got lost most days, but I always made it home except for the one day I got hit by a Crosley. They were terrible little cars and this one dinged me on Glebe Road. My mother was all shook up, but I pretty much bounced off it and just had a bruised rib. Today there'd be ambulances and everything, back then somebody just picked me up and took me home. “Right at the end of our street there was a little creek, covered with poison ivy, and a chain link fence with barbed wire. On the other side there was Arlington Hall, a secret place where they decoded German messages. Most of my babysitters were WACs who worked there. But get this, the grounds were tended by German POWs. How dumb is that? Putting Germans right next to secret codebreakers. But I guess those Germans weren't so dumb. Being a prisoner in America was a helluva lot better than freezing your ass of in Siberia or getting' baked to death with Rommel in the desert. Besides, they wouldn't get far, their uniforms had triangles on the back of their knees and in the middle of their backs. That was so the guards would have something to aim at if they ran. Good system, but I never ever heard a shot. “So that's pretty much what it was like back then. Got any more questions?” said the old man. As it happened, Christian did have more questions, a lot more. Questions about everyday life in a wartime society, deprivations, national spirit and the like. The old man told him that yes, even as a child, he had a ration book and that everything was rationed,

even shoes. He told him about his favorite shoe store where there was a machine that x-rayed one's feet inside one's prospective new shoes. "No, they didn't seem to care that the machines shot huge doses of x-rays through your feet. Didn't seem to do much damage though." He told him about the posters that were everywhere, posters that pictured Tojo as a buck-toothed killer, and he told about the hordes of military officers that walked the streets of the District every day. "A private would have had to have arm surgery from saluting all the brass if he'd walked up Constitution Avenue," he said. By this time the old man was showing signs of tiredness and Christian felt the need to retire to his turret and his computer to check the latest news on Reddit.com. Later on that evening Christian encountered a really old resident. He looked like his time on this earth was measured in minutes, not hours, and probably didn't need the unique services offered at the Pathway House. He pulled up a chair next to the overstuffed couch on which the old man sat and asked him how he was doing and, more importantly, how he'd spent his life. The old guy, whose name was Evan, looked at Christian through watery blue eyes, thought a bit then said, "Lad, by the looks of you you haven't done a lick of hard work in your life." As Christian protested, he interrupted, "no, I mean really hard work. Ever been in the mines?" Christian was aware of the anthracite mining history of the region, but admitted he'd never set foot inside a coal mine. Besides, all the mines were shut down due to flooding. It was almost as if he could see the old man traveling back through time, but Christian waited. "I was 14 when I went into the mines," said Evan. "I was a mule tender. The used mules to pull the coal cars and they'd put the mules underground where they stayed and worked until they died. Mean, nasty mules, and I was expected to lead them through the mines. Hellish work, but it wasn't hard, not really hard, physical, work. That came when I wanted to get away from the mules and I hitched up with a licensed miner, another Welshman, and got on his crew. Sonny, did you ever shovel 24 tons of coal, by hand, in the dark, with the roof only inches above your head with a grumpy old Welshman barking at you all day? Now that's what I call hard work and I got paid $1 for a day's worth of it." He went on to tell Christian how he progressed until he became a licensed miner himself. How he was expected to buy all his supplies from the company store and how his favorite thing about mining was playing with dynamite. "Oooh that dynamite was expensive, maybe 50 cents a stick for good old 80% DuPont, but if you knew what you were doing you could load up a case in a seam of coal, shoot it just right, and bring down that wall like the Almighty. One shot and a weeks' worth of loading, that's how you made money in the mines." He then told about stealing one mine timber a day, hauling it up the mountainside to where his house was, and using the lumber to add on and add on to the house. "Maggie and I just kept having children, seven in all, so I had to build to keep up. When the children stopped coming he just kept building until he owned an eight room house with a four room bungalow in the back yard. "Then it was time to get out of the mines," he said, "and take up concrete contracting. That wasn't quite as hard. Yep, I guess I've lived a long, hard life, but now I think it's time to go. I thank ye sonny for this place, you'll be

makin' an old man happy in just a few hours. Gotta have a beer or two first, then it'll be time." At the end of their first year in the Poconos Christian, Cheryl and their new son, Aaron, were transferred to a Pathway House in North Dakota. In the process Christian had been offered a position at the agency's District Office in Philadelphia, but he reasoned that the heavy duty politics in a regional office wasn't his cup of tea. As they discussed their future the couple began to question the ethics of their jobs. "My God Christian," said Cheryl, "we're in the business of killing people. How can that be good? This isn't what I went to college for, for God's sake, I was an art major. Besides, is this any kind of atmosphere to bring up our child in?" Ever practical, Christian pointed out that there was no way in the civilian sector that they could do so little work for so much money. Yes, North Dakota was a horrible place, but they'd be gone from there in a year or so. As for raising little Aaron, "for centuries there've been undertakers, and they had children, and they raised them in mortuaries and funeral homes, how can this be any different," he asked. So they packed up and prepared to leave Pathway House No. 5. 15 Meanwhile, back in Washington, where it all began, the President reported to Congress that the project was an overwhelming success. He said the Social Security and Medicare funds were not only in balance but were showing trillions in surpluses. The government's general fund was full to overflowing and tax cuts were in the offing, thanks to the increased farm production directly linked to the highcalcium compost sold from the Pathway houses. Electrical rates had dropped, thanks to the low cost power produced by the houses. “My fellow Americans,” he said, “America has seen in just one year an almost total turnaround. Our population is now younger, better educated and more productive than in any time in our history. We have become a producer nation again and we've reclaimed the old sobriquet, 'breadbasket to the world.' We no longer have to have a huge standing army, instead we simply buy off our enemies. I think you'll agree that the Liberty Tree has been renourished. ### I hope you enjoyed this mini-book as much as I enjoyed writing it. Although it is a free book it was not exactly free to produce. There was time, effort, equipment and the like. You knew this was coming. If you care to donate a small sum to the author so that he can replenish is supply of beans, oil and bacon you can do so by sending you donation to this PayPal account valsells at hotmail.com Of course you'll have to replace the word "at" with the @ symbol, but that's done to keep the spammers at bay. Thanks Arjay