The Wafer

Untold numbers of doomed patients await the donation of a living heart. In ancient cultures, priests presented the still beating heart at a ceremony to appease the Gods. In today's society, the church symbolically re enacts the old custom of sacrifice when presenting the wafer and wine. The modern surgeon could acquire donor organs to extend another life only after mankind changed the definition of death, thus loosening the bonds of the tethered monster, euthanasia. The difference between the religious ceremonies and the transplant industry leis in the donor's route to this sacrificial destiny, both victims of the treacherous hand of caprice. In one way or another a human life is sacrificed to improve another life. When black-market organs enter the equation, events can turn ugly.