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THE BUZZARDS

    Once a flock of buzzards became the star attraction at a felony trial.
    These carrion-seekers appeared out of nowhere to roost in every nook and cranny of the courthouse. Far too numerous for the building itself, they took over the front steps and the parking lot too, where the spectacle of their hopping awkwardly about and clamoring for position distracted all eyes from the halls of justice behind them.
    In truth, the buzzards could be deafening at times, drowning out even the daily statements made by attorneys before a brace of microphones. And in live feeds from the scene, little appeared for hours on end besides the head of one buzzard or another peering intently into a camera lens while trying to avoid being pushed aside by competitors. 
    Nor was it only in front of the courthouse that buzzards vied with each other and raised their ceaseless babel. Through the wonder of technology, a few might be beamed to a studio at “Global Broadcast Headquarters” where, against the projected backdrop of a busy newsroom or a few shelves of attractively arranged, color-coordinated book spines, they would be asked their assessment of the trial so far or of mounting charges they were exploiting the private pain of others for their own benefit. 
    At such moments, thanks to the latest voice-enhancement techniques, the audience might hear such opinions as “In our media age, the court of public opinion demands a new definition of the term habeas corpus. ‘Have the body’ now covers all involved, including the accused, the accuser, the families of both, and the families of the judge and jurors, plus any public relations firms or instabiographers retained by any of the above, their families, neighbors, high school sweethearts, or persons yet to be named. So what’s the ‘private pain’ issue there?”
    After the opinions of one set of these buzzards on the meaning of habeas corpus in a media age had been heard, the next set would be introduced in front of the same studio backdrop and asked the same questions. But no matter how many of them could be squeezed together for serial interviews, they were unanimous in their declarations that habeas corpus now applied to any and all bodies, dead or alive.
    Meanwhile, back at the courthouse, evidence for this belief proved as plentiful as the buzzards drawn to take up their daily vigil there. Nobody emerged from inside the court that wasn’t set upon in strident frenzy while the cameras turned and the satellite hook-ups hummed away. What remained when the buzzards were done often resembled neither the dead nor the living but rather something merely left behind for dead.
    Presented with this spectacle at home, viewers increasingly wondered if they themselves might wake up one morning to find the front yard filled with cameras and buzzards lurching into position around the door, ready to habeas their corpus too. Would they feel compelled to open up and present themselves to whatever awaited them?
    Would the answer to any hesitation, resounding from courthouse steps to TV studios to the front lawn, be some variation of “You have no choice. Nobody can escape today’s round-the-clock feeding cycle. Leave the set on long enough and you’ll be watching your own life picked clean in seconds. No use complaining when that happens. This thing’s bigger than any of us as individual buzzards, don’t you understand?”