Julie felt a vibration from her purse and wanted to ignore it. Of course, she never could, and applied enough pressure around her phone to turn it on call mode. "Ms. Swanson, this is Jamal from the Eastview Medical Center, calling about your Mother." Julie's mother had been in the hospital for the last four days after a stroke, and the recovery had not been going well. "Ms. Swanson, your mother is brain dead." Julie felt the ground fall from underneath her feet. She was standing at the playground watching her son Jules playing with neighborhood kids in blissful ignorance.

"Why didn't Dr. Nadal call me about this?" "Well, Ms. Swanson, our department found out about this first." Julie's knees buckeled as she realized that she was being called by the hospice department. They had somehow found out her Mother's braindeadness before her doctor did. Her knees almost entirely gave out as she watched a small girl slide down onto the moss and dirt on the ground.

Dirt made sense now. Nothing else did, and she grew silent. "Ms. Swanson, we here in the hospice department are committed to ensuring your mother leaves us as peacefully and happily as possible." Julie dropped the phone and to her knees. She began crying on the playground as her son and other bystanders came over to see her. Her son instinctually pressed the panic button nestled in his pants pocket. The button summoned local authorities to the location where the button was located. He went to console his Mom.

Michael Sells was a tough-nosed administrator in the hospitals' Hospice Department. He followed strict guidelines based on funding terms set by the Death with Dignity Act, passed by Congress in 2046. The act called for certain classes of patients to be automatically euthanized. The family could take the patient from the hospital before the death, but they would be responsible for all costs afterward. Most families could not afford it.

Sells was born in 2052, and was now 51. He was far removed from any real controversy over the procedure, and held a fatalist view of life. This combination of factors made it easy for him and others with his job to sign "End of Life Memorandums," which would have been called a death warrant 150 years previous. 

He walked into a common office. "Jamal, how was the reaction?" "Well sir, she just hung up." "Fucking great- call someone else, anyone." The policy was that one of the next-of-kin had to acknowledge the memorandum before the patient could be euthanized. Julie had not responded. So it went, the case was in limbo and Room 228 was now being wasted.

"Mommy, are you alright?" "Yes, son, I'm okay." Bystanders watched, hoping she didn't have some sort of further problem. All that could go through Julie's mind that that her mother, whom had kissed her after a visit just a week previous, was about to die. She was a single mom with no siblings and had no means to pay for her care and keeping. A sense of guilt crept in as she walked out the playground with her son onto the subway station.

"Maggie, come here for a moment." "Sure Jamal, what's up?" "I can't find any next of kin for Agatha Swanson." "Well, you called her daughter?" "Of course, she didn't respond." "Well, her son is way too young to be of any use, and there's no spouse." "We have to call again." "Maggie, it's your turn."

Julie's phone went off again, and she answered mournfully. "Yes?" "Hi, this is Maggie from Eastview, calling about your mother." "You're going to kill her, aren't you?" "Well, we will make sure it's a peaceful experience, and we want you to be a part of it." "Alright, let me get over there."

The signal was given, and a euthanasia room was prepared. The room was circular in shape, with an ornate decor, ranging from an etched floor to a finely painted arched roof with a painting depicting life and death, using the moon at a visual metaphor. Central to the room was a finely stitched leather gurney that held the patient, while seats encircled it for family. Candelabras hung from the wall, and the crew was about ready to light them. They were to be lit exactly half an hour before the act.

Julie had Jules picked up from the hospital shortly after she arrived, and she was led into a holding lounge. The hospital had verified her identity and has placed her into the palatial lounge, and that was enough for the process to begin. A crew of doctors went to recover patient #3474379, as they ultimately thought of her. This limb body was a number and burden of the State of Maine. Thus was the current state of American thought. She was wheeled over with her breathing machine and other apparatus.

A technician selected Debussy's "Claire de Lune" for the aural element of her euthanasia. The decision was made to inject patient #3474379 with a lethal mix of sedatives instead of pulling her breathing machine, which used to be the procedure. Ms. Swanson was placed onto the gurney and began to notice the feeling of the leather against her intermittently bare legs. She wasn't able to signal her being awake.

The IV was placed in her arm and a saline solution began to coarse through the needle. Sells, ever stressed, feigned a small smile and greeted Julie in the holding room. They had a chat not worth mentioning, then walked directly into the euthanasia room. A counselor was standing next to Ms. Swanson. "Hi Julie." She hugged Julie, and waited a full 30 seconds before carefully removing herself from Julie, as a schedule had to be kept. "It's starting now, Julie, and it's going to be okay." Julie cried and touched her mother's cheek, then leaned in for a sad, final kiss. A forty-two year relationship was reduced to an inhuman forty five seconds of mourning. 

The door was locked. A lethal dose of sodium thiopental was administered from behind a back wall. And after ten seconds, Ms. Swanson awoke, and made a moaning noise. The barbiturate had been administered too quickly, and there was no going back. Julie shrieked and Sells made a signal to a hidden camera in the ceiling. As patient #3474379's moaning tailed off, a man came from a hidden door in the wall and walked up to Juile. He pulled out a 45-caliber pistol and shot Julie point blank in the head.

The euthanasia was a success.