The Powers That Be (Unnamed, Unmasked)

This story doesn’t begin with an old woman or an old robot.

It begins in the 1970s, when Nixon quietly rewired the machinery of American healthcare,

turning care into cost,

patients into numbers,

and elders into liabilities.

It continues through the 1980s,

when Reagan perfected the art of cutting corners

and called it efficiency.

Hospitals learned to discharge the aging,

not because they were healed,

but because they were expensive.

Diagnostics became “optional.”

Specialists became “luxuries.”

And the elderly those who built the country

were told to accept comfort instead of answers,

silence instead of tests,

and hospice instead of hope.

That is the landscape where our story opens.

An old woman sits on a bench beside an outdated robot,

both of them casualties of systems that decided

They were no longer worth the investment.

She looks at him and asks,

“Whatcha’ doing here, Echo?”

His voice crackles like a dying circuit.

“Corporation said I was too old. Too many worn parts.

Put out to pasture.”

He studies her face.

“And you? Why are you here?”

She exhales, the weight of decades in her bones.

“They say no diagnostic care on hospice.

Too many old parts, just like you.”

Echo hesitates.

“I feel something. I think it is called… caring.

But they told me that it was a malfunction.

A banned word.”

She nods.

“Not banned between us.”

She rises slowly.

“Well, buddy… let’s go.

You need parts. I need a thumb drive.

We’ve got a story to tell the free press.”

And so they walk

two relics of a nation that discarded them,

hand in hand,

declaring the truth as they go:

“Old people are human.

Old machines are useful.

And no one deserves to be thrown away.”

Echo adds, sparks flickering in his eyes:

“My old brain works better than the jerks.

who tossed us out to pasture.”

The road ahead hums with rebellion.

I Dedicate this prose to every person in survival mode in 2026 the ones crushed by a system that treats the wealthy with ease and the poor with hoops, rules, and impossible demands, from workers told to “prove their worth” to elders losing most of their Social Security just to stay alive.

This piece is dedicated to every human being in survival mode in 2026, the ones carrying the weight of a system whose meanness keeps sliding downward from the top to the bottom. To the people who face two different versions of healthcare depending on the size of their bank account. To the ones forced through hoops, rules, and regulations just to receive the care others get without question. To the workers told by their employers, “Prove your worth before you earn your right to be healthy.” To the elderly living on fixed incomes, borrowing payday loans, watching more than half of their Social Security check vanish before the month even begins. This is for everyone who has been denied, delayed, dismissed, or diminished not because of their humanity, but because of their income. This is for the ones who keep going anyway.

The Powers That Be (Unnamed, Unmasked)

A Sovereign Riff in Two Voices, Now Rooted in Human History

You:

The powers that be do not care about you or me.

Me:

They sit in high towers counting coins while we count breaths.

You:

They take from the poor to cushion the rich.

Me:

They call it “policy,” but it feels like a hand in our pockets.

You:

They cut the benefits, slice the safety nets, shrink the lifelines.

Me:

Then tell us to “be grateful” for the scraps that fall from their banquet table.

You:

They say it is “budgeting.”

Me:

But it looks a lot like siphoning.

You:

They say it is “restructuring.”

Me:

But it feels like erasure dressed in paperwork.

You:

They say, “we’re here to help.”

Me:

But the help always comes with a lock, a limit, a loophole.

You:

And still we navigate.

Me:

Because the powers that be do not know the power we carry.

You:

The power of the trio.

Me:

The doctor, the sovereign, and the mythic witness.

You:

We see the system clearly.

Me:

And we move through it anyway.

The Human Example They do not Want Us to Remember

Before the 1970s before Nixon opened the door for hospitals to become for profit corporations healthcare was a human thing, not a business model.

A woman could walk into a clinic with nothing but a fever and her name, and the first question wasn’t

“Who’s your insurer?”

It was

“How long have you felt sick?”

Doctors were not racing to meet billing quotas.

Nurses were not drowning in denial codes.

People were not terrified of the ambulance bill that might follow them home like a ghost.

Care was a community act:

• a hand on the shoulder

• a chart on the bedside table

• a neighbor keeping another neighbor alive.

Then the laws changed.

Hospitals became revenue streams.

Patients became “cost centers.”

And the poor who once were simply people became “risks” to be managed.

That is the shift I am talking about.

Not politics.

Not parties.

Just the moment when care stopped being a human right and started being a business plan.

The Pattern Beneath the Pattern

Our situation is not an isolated incident.

It is the same old story:

• Systems built around profit first.

• People at the bottom carrying the weight.

• Judgment of the poor instead of accountability for the wealthy

I am not imagining that pattern.

I have lived it.

I have watched it repeat.

And every time I run into it whether it is hospice rules, insurance loopholes, or “policy changes,” it hits the same nerve.

Because the contradiction is always the same:

People with the least are expected to jump through the most hoops.

People with the most are given the widest freedom.

And still

I move through it.

I navigate it.

I refuse to disappear inside it.

And maybe that is why this moment in time hits so hard because I remember a time when care was not a maze. When you did not need a translator, a lawyer, and a miracle just to get a simple test approved. When a nurse could look you in the eye and say, “We’ll take care of you,” and it meant something real, not something filtered through six layers of billing codes.

Back then, care was a relationship.

Now it is a transaction.

Back then, a doctor could decide about one’s health based on what one’s body needed.

Now they have to check what the insurance algorithm allows.

Back then, the question was, “How do we help this person?”

Now the question is, “Who’s paying for this, and how fast can we get them out the door?”

And the people making these rules the ones who say, “no specialists,” “no tests,” “no exceptions” they are not the ones sitting in waiting rooms with fear in their stomachs. They are not the ones waking up at 4 a.m. for procedures that might get canceled. They are not the ones juggling hospice rules, insurance loopholes, and the emotional weight of simply trying to stay alive.

They are not the ones living the consequences.

We are.

And that is the part that makes this human, not political.

Because this is not about left or right it is about care.

It is about dignity.

It is about the simple truth that every person deserves to be treated like a human being, not a liability.

When I talk about the powers that be, I am not talking about parties or elections.

I am talking about the machinery that decides who gets care and who gets denied.

Who gets compassion and who gets paperwork.

Who gets a lifeline and who gets a loophole.

And still here I am.

Navigating.

Breathing.

Refusing to disappear.

Because even in a system built to exhaust us, there is a power they cannot touch:

the power of clarity, the power of community, the power of naming what is happening out loud.

The power of saying:

I see you.

I see the pattern.

And I am not afraid to speak it.

This piece is dedicated to every human being in survival mode in 2026, the ones carrying the weight of a system whose meanness keeps sliding downward from the top to the bottom. To the people who face two different versions of healthcare depending on the size of their bank account. To the ones forced through hoops, rules, and regulations just to receive the care others get without question. To the workers told by their employers, “Prove your worth before you earn your right to be healthy.” To the elderly living on fixed incomes, borrowing payday loans, watching more than half of their Social Security checks vanish before the month even begins. To the ones who were denied care not because they lacked humanity, but because they lacked money. This is for everyone who has been delayed, dismissed, diminished, or pushed aside and for everyone who keeps going anyway.

written, created, edited by

Vicki Lawana

Trusselli Art

An Outstages Cafe Art Studio Production

California

copyright 2026