Unforgettable
A/N: Signing off with Ol' McBlue Eyes…
With a paraphrase here, a gender reversal there, here a hum, there a note, everywhere a foot-tapping beat.
Reader, are you ready? It's the finalè countdown.
Aight, here goes.
And a one, and a two, and a 1-2-3…
And now, the tale end is near, and so Japril face, that final curtain…
My friend, I'll say it clear, I'll state my case, of which I'm certain…
I planned, each charted course, each careful step, along the byway…
Traveled that highway, did what I had to do, saw it through...
And more, much more than this,
I did it… my way.
Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew, when I bit off, more than I could chew – here's looking at you kid – hah…
But through it all, when there was doubt, I ate it up, and spat it out…
I faced it all, and I stood tall,
And did it… my way.
For what is a woman, what has she got? If not herself, then she has naught…
The record shows, I took the blows,
And did it… my way.
Ooh yeah…
You do you, Sarah Drew.
And JW? Yeah, you give it a shot too.
Shoo bop dee doo… Boop?
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Shonda Rhimes; these tunes and lyrics to Frank Sinatra Esquire, et al and the smooth jazz ending to Satchmo… You know, Louis of the strong-arm?
But, guess what? I fooled around, turned it upside down, and did it… my way.
Personal Addendum: With GA extending the middle finger to Japril fans, culminating in a mass exodus from the AppleJacks Fanfiction Community too, the resultant dwindling readership was to be expected. Believe me, Japrilites, I feel ya and yeah, I totally get it. After SD, the show is dead to moi too.
Still… Should old acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?
To those past and present, fanfic reading, die-hard stalwarts, I'd like to offer my heartfelt gratitude for wading through this confusing maze of getting to the point.
And to the ones taking the time to review…? Your constancy and continuity humbles me. Seriously. Like, you crazy guyz rock… Or rock like crazy, you guys! Either. Maybe even both.
But thanx muchly, you all 2, everybody. Truly appreciate the interactions.
To be honest, there have been moments when I've gotten demotivated. Been on Uneasy Street, so to speak. On the precipice of Throw-in-the-Towel-ville, if you will. Out there on the verge of giving up on this here story.
Yet still we stand. Eons later perhaps – give or take a decade – and we've made it through. Together. For Japril, that forever Unforgettable fictional couple…
See what I did there, she posited with a restrained hop from Royal Plural, a stones-throw skip to singular and finally an uncoordinated, wild jump to third person. The pièce de résistance being the Disney musical show-tune flourish of Maui tongue-in-cheekiness… You're welcome :-P
What a wild ride, eh? I mean, who puts the Pro in Procrastination, huh? Yeah, this gal, she said sheepishly with a reverse finger-gun salute.
After crunching those numbers there's just one final thing left to do here.
So I say, thank you for the reading, the words I'm writing :-)
Chapter 8
Sometimes when he closed his eyes he couldn't see. Yes, many a true word was spoken in jest, but he wasn't being facetious here. He meant that time had begun to dull the pictures that dreams produced.
The images that appeared since, came differently. As if through a deepening fog, they seemed to be moving further and further away from him. With what was a palpable presence before, now she quietly slipped away, fading away into the ether of his subconscious. Those nether regions where happy memories resided. A non-physical – metaphorical, really – Lake Tahoe.
Understandably, the context was vague and quite abstract in concept, but he would stick with the likelihood of their wedding destination being a happiness hotspot.
Memory echoes of good times – some bad and ugly in the mix too – were like carefully stored remembrances, lovingly packed away into an attic trunk. Filled to the brim with a mishmash of a hand-me down wedding gown or two, professionally staged photographs and amateur snapshots to boot. Yellowing with age and the keen-eyed observation of a faded ketchup stain, while being quietly relegated to the past. Perhaps only to be dusted-off when school projects required a genealogy chart. The bad and uglies, in the meantime, becoming so inconsequential as to be discarded, forgetting where those bodies of arguments were even buried.
Unmarked, unremembered and six-feet under would be anonymous enough. Clearly unhindered by the existence of any hidden treasure maps, X marked zero spots there. Unhinged it was, I tell you.
Pairing a ciphered binary one to the nought wouldn't help either. And to that mathematician who thought of the idea of zero… Thanks for nothing!
Neither would a doubling numeric cryptext, Fibonaccing the heck outa that sequence. Why, even consulting Kitab Al-Jabr – the ninth century treatise by The Father of Algebra, Al-Khwarizmi – would yield no answers. This mystery of Y then, was destined to remain an unsolvable mathematical equation.
And rightly so. It would be uncouth to speak ill of a dearly departed. Very unbecoming. Douche-like behavior, one could venture to suppose. Gauche too, perhaps? At least that's what the purple prose suggested. It lent a special cadence to the intro wouldn't you say? That extra oomph. Bada Bing, Bada Boom?
For the remembering, well… Quite the Whoopsie Daisy. But hey, don't call him crazy. He had never expected that he would ever have to answer to that nightmarish moniker. Widower. The term still gave him chills. Like a cool finger running down his spine. And not in a good way.
Encountering the label, he'd been unprepared. Consequently, without him having created any encoded mnemonic device to aid his failing eidetic memory, he was lost. Bada… Splat?
Confusing and slightly amusing, at least the ambient sound effects were appropriately distracting. Leaving no residue of echoing acoustics to leverage feelings of guilt.
Speaking of mysterious explosives though – the non-diarrhea kind – how about London's Grenfell Towers maintaining structural integrity after being engulfed in flames for more than 24 hours straight but America's Twin Towers collapsing into its own footprint at near free-fall speed after the high-rise burned for 1 hour and 42 minutes only? The secret of the conveniently forgotten Insurance Scam, huh?
Not to mention the case of the disintegrating plane which magically disappeared millions, billions and trillions from Pentagon coffers up to the day before. 2.3 Trillion Dollars to be exact. The enigma of the Great American Inside Job… unreported by colluding mainstream media, of course.
In point of fact, 9-11 – a date so arrogantly chosen – was one of the biggest frauds perpetrated on humanity. Used as a pretext for occupying, ravaging and pillaging Iraq. And Afghanistan's illicit invasion? Why, that was to satiate the unbridled greed of America and Britain's industrial military complex lobby.
So this is where he was at.
She – you know who – was there one second. Then poof. Gone the next. Think a disappearing Geni running out of juice, absconding mid wish-fulfilment. Or, depending on which animated character took your fancy, perhaps a pocket-watch carrying, tea drinking, un-birthday celebrating, harried, hurried hare and his bag of magic mushrooms?
Dang! Euphemistically, White Rabbit covered more than one kind of hidden high-ho. Definitely not off to work any little people go. Right. Enough with all the excuses… mini, many excuses. This here was clearly no conflict-mineral mining situation with a chaser of child-labor exploitation.
What it was, was a PC Police clamp-down. And wouldn't you know it, Political correctness had started overshadowing common sense. Like a personal pronoun becoming plural to cater to sensitive feelings.
So he hoped that Nuisance Nancy Callers could at least retain a modicum of self-control here. Enough to resist the urge to conduct any unnecessary citizens arrest or even for them to combat the compulsion to fabricate another false 9-11 narrative. This one over his miniscule, supposed gaffe.
So tiny, it was hardly worth mentioning. Faux Real. And let's face it, driven by that excessive "I want to speak to your manager" energy, The Karen's loudness would only be exceeded by her dimness and that supreme sense of entitlement. Not the mama-in-law, c'mon! Of course, Blonde wasn't known to be the brightest crayon in the box.
So… Obviously he meant vertically challenged but of-age workforce.
Now, operating heavy machinery while stoned could lead to some serious litigious repercussions. That would certainly not fly for plebs let alone Surgical Royalty that was The Harper Avery lineage. Seriously embarrassing. Almost as bad as being considered a patient of Dr. ED… You know? Mayfield in 22? Despite that, it suddenly flipped the switch, illuminating for him as to why that girl Alice seemed to be roaming in a psychedelic Wonderland of her own making most of the time.
Nope, not his sis-in-law either! C'mon now! Get with the program. What was it with all the two syllable white girl names though?
Sans any hallucinogenic – or even just plain mental intoxication – this put him at a serious disadvantage. But in a sort of mini-trance, nevertheless. Strangely, he was transfixed by the idea of channeling Oprah. "You get an un-birthday! You get an un-birthday and you get an un-birthday," the gruff voice rattling in his brain echoed, the chant snapping him out of reality for the microsecond it took to wish three un-birthdays.
Post giveaway, he just needed to click the heels of his Ruby Kicks together the magic number of times. Uno, dos, tres and voilà, he'd be back in her arms again. Mostly intact, he hoped, but conspicuously missing an inconsequential part or two here and there. Like an appendix. Didn't seem to serve any purpose. Just hung there, dangling. Tryna look pretty.
Cut it out! You know what he meant.
All righty then. Enough with these April-like thought segues. The mental gymnastics alone were exhausting.
Yet… Fantasy or delusion, or Inception-induced hallucination, he'd take it. Even a dream-state embrace was better than nothin, right?
So, yeah. With beheading all the rage, Off-with-his-Head wasn't a particularly good look for him. Especially considering that the execution order would have to come from the Queen of his Heart. Who, while she'd enjoyed lovingly berating him at times, wasn't even around for a mild rebuke anymore. Not to mention those other times. Phew, those verbal castrations had been sharp. She'd been known to be so on point that sometimes it had been hard to resist the urge to protectively cup himself.
But see now, if you were gonna talk decapitation – the big head, not the *cough cough* less big one – then one name stood out. Head and shoulders above the rest.
Snort. Clean up on Aisle Four.
Okay, okay, forgive the pun. But not the innuendo. Wink wink.
Synonymous with class, sass and stylish roundhouse arm action. Not to mention the pointy end of sharpened Black Steel meting out Justice. This was the imposing blade of Turkish Ertuğrul Bey.
Uh huh. Correct. Bey. You heard it here first.
But Bae – same sound, alternative spelling – that had been around for about a minute.
Bae: from the Latin origin root "Baa" meaning, "of sheep"… nah, he was jus messin.
One internet theory postulated that the Americanized slang derivation was an acronym. BAE: Before All Else. You couldn't get any more nauseatingly saccharine than that, now could you? Of course, Mericans being who they were, it didn't really strain credulity to believe that they'd bastardized and stolen the word from the Turks.
Going by the US's proclivity for shortening an already diminutive word though, it was more than likely that they were going for "Babe", which was either a loved one… or a talking pig. Considering White Celebrity eccentricities, he wouldn't be surprised if they were both. A Rodeo Drive, un-Real Housewives type accessory. Tea-cup Piglet in a Poodle-bag?
Depending on their level of show and tell veganism, he wouldn't put it past the Trophy Wives Club to switch that up too. Like having a Tea-cup Poodle in a Piglet-bag, perhaps? Yeah, whichever way it went, some cute and fuzzy would have to bite the dust for that fashion statement to… well, make a statement?
Speaking of a propensity for shortness, it appeared that being headless would definitely fit the bill. Gave petite a new look while still… slangifying? Wait, was that a thing?
What was it about the HW entertainment industry complex that insisted on dumbing down its following, huh? Personally, he liked big words… and he could not lie. You other brothers couldn't deny that when a word sauntered in with an itty bitty alliteration and a pompous soundtrack in your face, you got… exhilarated?
Boom. Sir Mic drop.
What? Nothin? Tap, tap… is this thing on?
Anyway. He was quite prepared, literally and figuratively, to put his own head on the block with the Turk-man recommendation. No wishy-washy sentimentality muddying the waters for him. Yep, yep, yep. He firmly believed that there was none other that could cleave a torso so cleanly from the pillar of its neck – coupled with panache and precision – than the son of Süleyman Şah.
He may have exaggerated a teeny, tiny bit here. All be it in the name of good and clean and fresh – definitely bloodless, the real red corpuscles at least – fun. Who could have predicted that going down that rabbit-hole, or even the Pre-Ottoman Empire Resurrection of Diriliş: Ertuğrul, would be such an adventurous trek, alternating between gigantic hair and embellished headdresses. Minuscule waistlines and child-bearing hips. Thicc butts and horse-rider flanks. But really, there was no place like home.
Okay, so he knew he was way off trek with this mixed masala of animation, fantasy adventure and Turkish part-fictional-based-on-real-life-historical-events docu-series. But far be it for him to ignore such a magnetic personality as Engin Altan Düzyatan.
In his lead role, the Turk certainly possessed the commanding presence of a man firmly on the right side of Justice, Ethics, Fearlessness, Loyalty and unquestioning Bravery. And boy was he a looker. Even prettier than himself. No, scratch that. The actor was way too manly for such a tame adjective – Beardmiration for the win! – Though attractive and handsome didn't really do him justice either. He was a man's man.
As for himself, Pretty-Boy wasn't something he aspired to. He'd much rather be soul-food than eye-candy.
With great difficulty he shook off the brother-love. The non-US – possibly anti-US too – overseas contingent that was his man-crush, and redirected his attention homeward bound. Perhaps the diversion was in retaliation to the strange but ominous premonition he had, of Hollywood version Dorothy and Alice – Dorlice? Alithy? – duking it out for the heavy-weight title of Dominatrix of his mind?
C'mon now. It's not like either one was a psychopathic, population-controlling Bill Gates in drag, leading a blind-following of zombie vaccinated over the cliff of rational thought. The other William though… why that Fresh Prince was positively Legend. If you asked him, the Dot-Alice combo did kinda look like recruit minions of the Billiam and Melinda G Show. Active participants in B&M's villainous quest to control a generation of compliant Pod-People. The Walking Dead?
I mean, wasn't Bill that deceptively affable-looking man who, in his youth – backed by Mummy and Daddy's Million-Dollar start-up gift – became the guy who created computer viruses just so he could sell anti-virus protection? Of course, this money-spinning business model regurgitated on a loop with every Windows upgrade released. All the while collecting bonus CIA points for his built-in back doors, left ajar to allow in a stalking censorship.
With all those successes under his belt, and a proven methodology, it would be naïve to think that he didn't turn his ambitious sight to creating the human equivalent. Big-Pharma beckoned. Especially to a Social Psychopath.
No, nope. This wasn't him being obstreperous. He just felt that Sociopath defined, lacked the oomph of unrepentant, spine chilling, pure evil. It was too mild a descriptor for someone so lacking in humaneness that they were unable to comprehend a word like "Concern" let alone understand or even experience it.
Courtesy of Shepherd insider info – with no associated consult, obviously – perhaps the diagnosis was a damaged Anterior Insular Cortex. This was the portion of the brain processing empathy. Hence, the hallmark of a Psychopath being a lack of the very fundamental human emotions of kindness and compassion.
Seems like the serial upgrader himself needed an operating system update. Consideration 2.0?
Ironic, really, that a guy with no empathy hijacked the emotional response for everyone else.
Discounting him becoming flush with monetary gain, like he was literally the Biggest Daddy-O Warbucks in the World. Except for his fake philanthropy, which was PR spun to hide a nefarious agenda. Promotion of his brand as generous benefactor while simultaneously removing the spotlight from his illegal monopolies.
He would likely see the results of his activities as having a two-fer advantage. One, culling the human race via this global eugenics program and secondly, controlling who was left. All while profiting majorly. Coz, if they weren't dead from it, they were dead for it. And whoop di doo, how's this now for a continuous money stream? Yep, those poison filled, regularly required booster shots.
Viewed from an impartial lens, with no fear-driven propaganda clouding judgement, one might almost call it a cult mentality. With the Microsoft Mogul as the snake-oil charmer cult-leader.
On the off chance that he was reading too much into the motives and agenda of Event 201, and kay, for the sake of argument, let's say Ol Billy's intentions were purely altruistic in nature, then who benefited by the lockdowns and experimental gene-therapy connivingly labelled as vaccines? Elite, greedy, fat-cat Bankers and wealthy, tax-evading one percenters, that's who. And of course the 9 newly minted CEO Billionaires of the Pharmaceutical Industry. All three sides salivating at the prospect of The Great Reset, which would send them soaring into the stratosphere of overabundance.
Yeah, the Vaccine had been socially weaponized.
Stakeholders were not taking it but were forcing it on the underprivileged. They knew it didn't work.
Burying and criminalizing affordable alternative remedies. Stopping herd immunity with fear-inducing distancing laws. Promulgating an unsafe, side-effect-ridden jab, tested on the African Population; BG's factory of Human Guinea Pigs. Again. All while looting, pillaging and plundering said continent of its natural resources. Again.
Colonization was still afoot. It was no coincidence that African Leaders opposing the fraudulent testing and vaccines, after being vilified as anti-vaxxers in the "Paid and Approved by Gates" Press, had suddenly disappeared. And those so-called leaders pushing the agenda? With their hands out for hand-outs, they continued lining their pockets to the detriment of country and citizenry.
These all led to one mother-freaking scheme. The dark con of one man. Mo money… Mo power… Mo control.
Yeah, every time the money was followed, it lead to one name… Gill Bates.
Eeh, eeh, eeh. One could almost hear the knife-wielding acoustics that Psycho name conjured up.
Consequently, you had a non-biochemist leading policy on vaccines. No, not BG's varsity roommate, the sock-puppet flip-flopper Fauci, but the Master Puppeteer himself. Amazing that Gates with his self-satisfied smirk still managed to fool people into believing that he was a benevolent philanthropist.
And c'mon, Science in relation to these so-called vaccines, which ironically contravened the CDC's, FDA's, NIH's, WHO's – the entire alphabet soup of confused agencies really – own definitions of such, was completely political, unsound and rejected by intelligent Doctors of conscience, of which he counted himself a part of.
Quite frankly, the highly experimental injections did not meet the legal or scientific definition of a vaccine. What they did do was to genetically instruct a person's body to manufacture an overabundance of spike proteins. Travelling through the bloodstream, the Messenger-RNA (mRNA) shot thus had the entire body producing the toxic pathogen, which in turn created blood clots and damages to multiple organs.
Hence, the simple concept of bypassing a normal immune system by injecting poison directly into muscle tissue or worse… well, it did give him pause. Sounded mightily like Medical fraud, no? Where was the "first do no harm" overarching rule of The Hippocratic Oath, hmm?
Obviously he believed in Science and Technological advancements for the betterment of mankind. This was not beneficial Science however, but a manipulation of the terminology. Pseudoscience, really. A suspension of logic. Fact free and fear driven hysteria.
Calling the experimental Gene Therapy a COVID vaccine not only placated unquestioning Sheeple but was Big Pharma's fast-track to avoid product liability suits. Of which the legal system had, quite suspiciously, had Vaccine Injury claims removed as a recourse for the impacted. Hence, giving "Vaccine" Manufactures free reign, no restrictions, no repercussions and no incentive to make the experimental Covi Inoculations safe.
True objective Science in Medicine no longer existed, what with the Pharmaceutical Industry paying for everything. They were given Carte Blanche to do as, what and when they pleased. Their track record of paying off people was part of expenses. A line item in their business financials. Now ask yourself, why would anyone trust drug companies who were serial felons?
When powerful people have a vested interest in suppressing inconvenient facts that don't tie in with their agendas, their secrets either go to their victim's graves or get covered up by an emergent industry whose core purpose is stigmatizing whistle-blowers as conspiracy nut jobs.
Let's just say he was a firm proponent of Informed Consent. With a strong emphasis on the enlightenment part of that statement.
So, Yeah. He'd been talked-down to. Ostracized. Ordered to "Stay in his lane."
But he answered to no master.
They could, quite simply, disabuse themselves of the notion that his purpose on earth was to tuck their ignorance in at night.
Okay, look. He was a doctor… and a parent. He was not about to let anyone experiment on his child. And let's face it, many of the medical professionals he worked with themselves did not know what were in those vials or even the efficacy thereof. It was shameful how the shot was being punted, with hospitals collecting Big Bucks and many doctors using Big Pharma PR talking points instead of proven, tested, peer-reviewed, science. Advertising campaigns, incidentally, which the multinational pharmaceutical companies spent billions on, to convince the public to be and remain terrified. Of a respiratory virus, less deadly than the seasonal flu. One with a 99.9-plus percentage spontaneous recovery rate.
And those so-called peer-reviewed studies of short-term safety and short-term efficacy of the injections? Would it surprise anyone to find that they were funded, organized, coordinated and supported by the For-profit Corporations? None of their study data, incidentally, were made public or even made available to researchers who didn't work for these companies.
Being a qualified Plastic Surgeon who'd completed his residency rotations in other departments long ago, he was not privy to the actual jabbing. Becoming a father though, had him invested in investigating the outcomes. So he was there at ground zero, in the Trauma Centre, when all manner of symptoms from the shots started rolling in. Obviously he didn't mean pain at the injection sites but rather serious issues that couldn't be brushed off with the "it's a coincidence" argument. Or even, despite the patterns and numbers, the "no causality" contention. Anaphylaxis, Thrombosis, Guillain-Barré Syndrome, Myocarditis and Pericarditis, Neurological side-effects, Bell's Palsy, Severe Blood Clotting, Miscarriages, Breast deformities… to name but a few.
Just as worrisome though, was that ER doctors and nurses treating the Vaccine Injured were themselves experiencing unheard of symptoms… rashes, unexplained bleeding, etc.
Which led him to VAERS: the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System. This voluntary reporting mechanism was set up by the Administration in conjunction with the 1986 Act that indemnified drug companies from liability for their products and put that responsibility solely on the Government. Declared by Harvard Medical as a cumbersome, outdated and in dire need of a technological overhaul process, one could not fault the magnanimous estimate of up to 10% – but more likely 1% – of cases only being recorded.
The VAERS numbers were thus:
About 8,800 deaths from all vaccines over 30 years versus 13,000-plus deaths (and counting) reported over 7-8 months from one set of vaccines.
The figures spoke for themselves. But because it was a passive surveillance system one could deduce that side effects could actually be 10 times or even 100 times higher than reported.
A conservative gauge would be anywhere from 126,000 to 1.2 million serious side effects, and anywhere from 35,440 to 354,400 vaccine-related deaths.
Did this not fall under the category of Crimes against Humanity?
And of course, those injured by the COVID-19 "vaccines" were left to fend for themselves financially. Since the injections only had emergency use authorization – which in and of itself did not satisfy the criteria requirement to be classified as such – this meant that those injured became economically responsible for any and all medical attention they would need.
Neither could the impacted sue. Not the vaccine developer, the government, the doctor or anyone else involved in the manufacturing, distributing or administering of COVID-19 vaccines… they all had special liability protections.
In addition to all the adverse events unreported by media was their deliberate obfuscation of actual and relative percentages. Hence, the speculative jab, with an absolute risk benefit of between 0.84 – 1.2% only, was being replaced with mainstream mass communication fake-out figure citing relative risk reduction of 95%.
In a world built on media spin, truth becomes a radical concept, no? So basically, censored, yeah?
Increasing SARS Cov-2 numbers had also been monetarily incentivized, with hospitals being persuaded to report all deaths – yeah even gunshot victims – as COVID-related and being bribed too to submit patients to ventilator use.
The Hitler argument of acceptable risk was another sore point. "A small price to pay," they pompously spouted, while patting themselves on the back. This sacrificial concept offered up someone else's kid for the experimental poke. Kill shots, as it were.
Thus, infections and death from COVID had been hyper-inflated and adverse reactions to the COVID prick had been greatly deflated with deaths from COVID Inoculations way over that of any medical products removed from the market due to having 50 deaths or less. Yet the Injectable Missiles had not stopped.
The intent was malevolent. Bullying, bribery and coercion. Why were Big Pharma and Global Governments pushing unapproved, untested experimental injections upon billions of people worldwide? And why were their allies in Big Tech and Corporate Media censoring respected doctors who uncovered the real science? In fact, as in nature, a polyculture of information and its interpretations were sorely needed. So why were calls for a diversity of scientific opinions being blocked?
People – questioning people – were being viciously scapegoated by fearmongering propaganda driven by politicians, mainstream media, government social engineering campaigns and their unjust rules and policies, collaborating employers, and the social-media mob.
Being brave under this deluge of negativity and lies required resilience, integrity, grit. And choosing not to take the vaccine was holding space for reason, transparency and accountability to emerge.
Hence, he'd decided. It was time to say, "NO!" Loudly and proudly.
No to insufficiently tested injections for which there was no reliable science.
No to a violation of his dignity, integrity and bodily autonomy. It was his right to assert guardianship of his body and to refuse medical treatments as he saw fit.
No to mass vaccination in schools. He would fight for his child… for all children.
No to any shots without free, informed consent. Which was not at all possible under present circumstances.
No to jabs whose long-term effects, Transgenerational effects, Vaccine-induced deregulation of natural immunity and potential harm were unknown.
No to guilt trips, attempted ostracism, targeted pressure, intimidation and unjust accusations of being a factory for new SARS-CoV-2 variants, when in fact, a person's natural immune system generates immunity to multiple components of the virus. Which in turn promotes protection against a vast range of viral variants and abrogates further spread to anyone else.
No to unacceptable scientific methodology for vaccine trials and no to studies that were also not blind, where people giving the injections admittedly knew or could deduce whether they were injecting the experimental vaccine or the placebo.
No to the deliberate sabotage of early treatment protocols.
And No to medical recommendations being driven by the White House.
But this was America for you. The land of the so-called free… market economy. Where Black Wall Street and Black success was bombed out of existence. Free. Provided you had the backing of White Wall Street, of course. Or bailout cronies. It was nothing short of biological warfare. A Scamdemic Plandemic. Brought to you with the stamp of approval – and placebo vaccinations for the pretend compliant upper echelons of politics and entertainment – of that White monstrosity seat of power that reeked with the stench and stain of hypocrisy as it was built on the backs of slaves.
It should really be called the Red House. None of its so-called democratically elected figure-heads could lay claim to having clean hands. They dripped blood. Domestic and foreign. Invading any land it could, forever beating those drones of war. Ostensibly to improve the lot of said country with the real motivation being usurping the mineral riches of that land.
What's a few million lives here or there, lost to force "Freedom" upon them? Yeah, those hands all ran crimson. And well, it would be a perfect homage to the original inhabitants of the stolen land it was erected upon. With an additional nod to that Native Indian blood that was spilt for the real estate to come into being.
Speaking of big time theft and murder… how could he ignore the heinously conducted land grab and continuous displacement of the Palestinian People? Especially since this was the historical background of his son.
It pained him to admit, but he'd been sold on the "not our problem" part of it. I mean, racism was so rampant in his own backyard, who had time to consider other parts of the world? Denial-ism wasn't just a river in Egypt. Not to say that he was completely ignorant. This was about Brown people being killed. So he'd worn his Palestinian Keffiyeh and that had been it. His own Cloak of Invisibility.
Gazing down into the too wise eyes of his son, the realization of a huge responsibility had hit him head on. He owed it to Kamal to ensure that the boy's history was not erased. The illegitimate occupier had so easily, and without repercussion, stolen his land, lineage and family. And attempted to take his hands too.
But not on his watch. It was now up to him to at least teach his child about where he came from, eventually joining him in the fight to achieve Justice for all that had been violently stolen from him.
Look, he wasn't a fatalist. Like the concept of predestination was not anywhere on his radar. Neither did he believe in bad luck. He was a man of science who had had his eyes opened to the possibility of one unique creator of the universe.
Investigating The Quran, The Muslim Holy Book revealed by Allah to his Prophet Muhammad, he'd come to recognize and appreciate and yes, turn on its head a major erroneous assumption. To put it mildly, he was surprised. Okay, flabbergasted. Yeah, his gast had never been more flabbered.
Many things had stood out to him, the major one being the level of Scientific Facts contained in the Book. He'd learnt that almost 25% of the Quran contained Science. Discoveries that a 14th century, un-lettered, Shepherd could not have come up with on his own and in those times. It was knowledge that could only have originated from the Source.
Like, the accuracy and perfection with which the universe was created. Oxygen. Gravity. Water.
Like the exact process of human life formed in the womb. A sperm drop in a secure lodging, becoming a leechlike mass, the zygote, which forms into an embryonic lump. Bones then created within the fetus lump; followed by flesh clothing the bones.
Like the Precise Mathematical calculations that abound in nature and all its phenomena. The sun with it's own light, burning as a lamp. The moon, a reflecting source of light. All celestial bodies swimming along in their rounded courses.
Like the Laws of cause and effect. For example, eating from an animal who died of natural causes leading to the human body being poisoned by the diseased flesh.
Yeah. Discoveries that were still being made, revealed in the Holy Book more than 1400 years ago.
He'd thus come to the realization that Science and Faith were not mutually exclusive. That belief in Science did not preclude religious conviction. That Religion and Science were not enemies, just different language telling the same story.
Anyhoo.
Reality sucked. It bit it. Big time.
So give him the Fair Justice of Ertuğrul. Or even the Justness of Fair Ertuğrul would do. Any day. Twice on Fridays.
Unable to prevaricate any longer, he put aside his personal political views to swing back around to simply personal. Specifically to April and his memories of her. So whichever way an observer went, it meant that this day, he was like any other Joe, having to rely on photos to recall the detail in the moments. And no, he wasn't referring to his father-in-law here either. Ex-late father-in-law? Yeah, no, the guy himself wasn't dead, so the terminology wouldn't work. He wondered though, did the in-law relationship survive the death of the spouse?
For right now, when he closed his eyes, all he saw was darkness. But, wait. What light through yonder eyelid breaks? Aah, of course. No flashing strobes, so all cool.
At least he could breathe. Not so much if any one of his tablet, smartphone or laptop screens were still lit. Hence, continuing to glow with streaming blue emissions. Yep. Brain numbing and subliminally transmitting, it restricted the production of melatonin and messed with his circadian rhythm sleep cycle.
The context of taking one's breath away was not a positive one in that shrieking-light scenario. Silence was violence. Being breathless one quickly came to the conclusion that Black and Blue did not mesh well together. Neither complementing each other, nor either having a passing acquaintanceship, it became abundantly clear that the combo was a back-of-the-head-pounding irritant. Perhaps even dangerous to a person's continued good health. A painful combination, in point of fact.
Being policed by an Angry Blue could have the unintended consequence of leading to much havoc. Not to mention creating for him a permanent naptime in that he'd likely be sleeping with the fishes. You know… chumming the waters...? Fish food...? You get the picture.
Okay, okay, enough with the rolling side-eye. By nature he was an activist; a sociopolitical beast. So sue him.
It was no small feat then, that while he was fully awake and alert, for his consciousness to be able to play cruel tricks on him. There he was, minding his own business – or as much as his profession, the flourishing environment of hot-bed hospital gossip, and natural curiosity, allowed – when bam, shazam, kablam! Yep, it would have to be a triple threat.
Confronted with that three-fold onomatopoeia, he was slammed by a non-corporeal right hook out of nowhere. If comparative parables could communicate, this one would say, "Wham, bam… thank you, Metaphysical Ma'am?" Na uhh.
Okay, so he was jus playin.
Spooks couldn't talk. And that spooky alphabet Agency – c'mon you know the one… thought they were so Clever, they put Intelligence smack dab Central where Corrupt should be – well they didn't recruit talkers. Otherwise how would they be able to get on with the business of destabilizing a country?
But, he ain't fraid of no ghost.
A hyped on adrenaline, riled-up April, though, was another matter entirely. Yeah, Bitch, she'd wanted to – and did – go. All the way to destination split-lip, passing by blue shiner, with a quick stop at bloody-nose. Who knew she'd had it in her to let go like that and simply throw caution to the wind? But it did explain her lack of inhibitions later and why he went there.
While he'd been surprised and impressed by her prowess, he had to admit to a small measure of fear. Seeing that she had that ability in her arsenal was slightly fright inducing. You can bet that he'd washed his dirty cereal bowls after.
The spectre of that apparition was a powerful analogy. Enough to render him senseless, or at the very least, knock the air outa him. Punch-drunk. And not by any caffeinated, fizzy or alcoholic beverage. Maybe the slow release of a punctured chore wheel, though?
Yeah, he was being a tad dramatic. Like, this was no laughing matter. No Siree! He was no Jokeson.
Look, it hadn't even been a year. Paradoxically swift, yet mind-numbingly dragging at times. It's just that not having her there to speak to, to help parent, the months had gone by in a blur. Seemingly fast and furious. And on this day, it appeared as if he'd been bombarded with explosions of wrongness. Life gone wild. Why, he was still looking for things to be the way they were, though much of everything was in disarray here. Except for the rhyming couplets, obviously. Not on pause, those ran true to form, through a meandering obstacle course.
Since she'd been gone he'd learnt to be pro-active. No longer content in his complacency of just letting things happen to him – like missed flights and fleeing wives – he now preferred to grab that bull by the horns. Props for trying, no? I mean, you missed a hundred percent of the shots you didn't take, yeah?
So it was somewhat disconcerting to be on the receiving end of all that secrecy. Aggravating too, to be sure. Blocked at every turn, it was almost like he was the only one being kept in the dark. Especially frustrating since it concerned his own life.
Conversely, she was currently on his mind pretty much all the time. Around every corner there she was. Well, some reminder of her anyway. So many little things – and one tiny human – were a constant nudge. Damn Robbins and her catchy nomenclature. And no, it wasn't… she wasn't… a taboo subject. April, he meant. At least that's what he'd believed. Until today. Kamal's hesitancy in talking about her, had certainly shook him up.
He'd been under the impression that he was that guy. You know the one. True to his obligations. Doer not delegator. Undoer too, if the situation called to be undid. Always available to lend a helping hand. Maybe even mowing furniture or moving the lawn. Yeah, close enough. He was up for either one. Any which way but not. Provided he was paid in food, of course. And if the grub came white seasoned? Well, he was prepared. Hot Sauce in his man-bag swag.
At times he was a shoulder to lean – or cry – on. Or at the very least, loan a listening ear to. Audio-visual, eh? Like, seriously. Wasn't he a man of integrity? One who always kept his promises? That's what April had him believe, anyway. Although what those qualities had to do with him being available to help someone build their Ikea disassembled rocking chair – twice and without written instructions, mind you – was questionable.
But he was getting in touch with his feelings. Slowly. Therapy was not only for the grief stricken. Or the emotionally stunted, humorless crazies. Okay, so he was au fait with Psychological Terminology. Not to mention Professional Etiquette. Wasn't it all Psychobabble anyway?
Speaking of… How many Shrinks do you suppose it would take to change a lightbulb?
One. However, the lightbulb really had to want to change.
Hah. Did you see what he did there? Illuminating, huh?
Well, April would have got it.
But in the meantime, he was apparently something else too. The other guy. MD, Unapproachable. Mister Doctor to you, thank you very much. Anyhow, that's what recent interactions presumed.
Assumptions, hmm? It didn't pay to have those either. You know what they said, right? When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me. Ass… U… Me. Get it? And who is the 'They' you may ask? Google Thesaurus, Boris. Actually, any Internet Browser, Doogie Howser. Wikipedia? How fast can they not impede ya.
Big picture? He had to remember that the devil was in the details. And that indoctrination crept in stealthily, accompanied by a fearful demeanor and big brother, seemingly protective, censorship. He'd read somewhere just the other day, that independent fact checkers were the new cogs in political spin machines. Yep, the article went on to elucidate. Neither independent nor factual, it said, they were in a race for the modern world's most precious resource, the narrative.
Little picture? While he wasn't exactly cold and aloof – perhaps slightly stress paralyzed, even if that wasn't a thing – he supposed that distant wasn't too far off the mark. Gosh darn it! A relay of unintended puns seemed to follow him everywhere. Oh, brother.
So, Yes. Dare he say it? Okay, yeah. He was the big, lockdown couch-potato drooping ass in assume. Damnit! It wasn't just breathing in his own regurgitated CO2 that had him lightheaded.
But he was also a father now. A role model to an impressionable mind. Which meant, the donkey's behind – yeah, ass squared – in Dad Jeans, cleaning up his language, was all him. The fond exasperation of his very own Jiminy Cricket would forever echo in his ear, reminding him of that fact. "Language, Jackman!" his petite conscience would lovingly scold. Sigh. Good times. At least this mother's Son had become a Man in somebody's eyes.
Part of evolving into this new and improved, decisive Jackson Avery meant distancing himself from flowery speech and ostrich-like behavior. You know why the Big-bird comparison, right? Because ostriches hate confrontation. It makes one a head-in-the-sand kinda bird. Flighty too. In the non-aerodynamic sense of the word.
He could ignore the hype… the overly-analyzed think pieces… the attempted emasculation. Easily. Now he just needed to ask his mother if he could be assertive.
The best way to move forward, he figured, was to remove emotion and employ logic and deductive reasoning to the situation.
One. His wife was dead.
Two. Her wedding band and engagement ring had never been recovered on her burnt corpse.
Three. A shot-up felon in his ER somehow ended up with her distinctively engraved, diamond-studded platinum band.
Alarm bells were going off. Ding ding ding. His Spidey Sense was tingling. Or was that simply his Jackson Tingle spiraling? Whatever. Consider this. The probability of him ending up with the bauble in question, directly into the palm of his hand, at this freaky moment in time, had to be astronomical. About as likely as finding a needle in a haystack. It certainly poked him in the ass.
So, Four. Detectiving. He needed to Sherlock Holmes this.
I have no Superpowers. I'm guessing I'm the villain.
See you soon… soonish… for the conclusion to the conclusion…