Search Results: 'Gonzalez v. United States'

The Stoning of Michael Corbin

Words: 3147 · Source Novel:: Verdict of Vultures

The year is 2022 in Northport, a fictional New England port city rotting from the inside. Michael Corbin, a gentle-natured VA hospital administrator, is wrongly accused in a leaked federal lawsuit, Gonzalez v. United States, of causing a veteran's death by tampering with medical records. The case, still pending in court, is tried and won in a single weekend on the social media platform "EchoSphere". A digital mob, led by anonymous influencers and bored, self-righteous citizens, convicts him with hashtags and doctored screenshots. The chapter culminates with Michael, finding his tires slashed and a dead rat on his doorstep, stepping onto his snow-dusted balcony and, with the briefest look into his teenage son Leo's window, stepping into the void. The chapter is told through the frozen silence of that moment, as witnessed by Leo.