THE DOCTOR'S PLAN

My plan worked. A liquid injected into the veins of children—yes, children, unwilling, screaming, crying children—to prevent them from contracting communicable diseases. Hate me if you want to. I never asked for your forgiveness. When I was just a boy, I watched my parents die before my eyes. Polio. I vowed to get my revenge. And I didn't care who I helped or how many lives I saved along the way.

- BY CORA FRAZIER

This surgical mask is my disguise and my means of shielding myself from COVID spittle. I don’t need to show my face. I have no face to show. I am no longer a man. I have become what you call me, a give-no-shits Doctor, out here running cold water on the world’s burns.

Where is my conscience, you ask? Never had one. I’ve been too busy dressing wounds. Conscience is for cape-wearing amateurs who haven't yet recognized that they are, at their core, just like me. Broken. Weary. Numb. Band-Aid toting. Come and get me, so-called heroes. Because I’m about to strap you to a gurney and apply an ice pack to your throbbing head. And the whole time I’m going to laugh while asking what your kid has been up to.

Don't call it a costume. Call it scrubs. I wear them because of bloodstains. Yeah, Mr. Secretary, the blood from your nose when you forget to turn on the humidifier at night. Dry heat from a radiator will do that to you. Take a lollipop from my assistant. It’s poison-apple-shaped, and I’m not sorry.