Stored in argon-filled glass booths guarded over by monks in the cavernous secret library below the Center for Medicare Services, exist a series of nine prophecies known only as “the ICD.”  The meaning of ICD is lost in the obscurity of time.

Reports suggest that each volume of the ICD lineage contains deeper insights than the previous.  The divine inspiration of the original ICD was declared long ago and is well accepted by those of the faith.  The truth of the ICD is kept hidden by a robed and clouded bureaucracy with strange sexual predilections, at least until the time that the final heir is revealed.

Some believe that this heir – the next divinely-inspired installment that is cryptically called ICD-11 – will be revealed in all its glory as soon as October of this very year, although similar claims have been made for each of the last three years, so credibility of such self-proclaimed prophets is lacking.

The undisclosed documents contain endless numerical codes, called cryptexes that some say contain the secrets of the universe.  Others suggest that the codes reveal the alchemy of turning black ink on bogus insurance forms into green ink on bogus paper.

Recently found scrawled on the back of the Declaration of Independence in invisible ink are the words “SO DARK THE CON OF MAN.”  By changing just a few letters, this is an anagram for “ICD IS A CONTROLLING SCAM, MAN.”

There are symbologists who seek to reveal the royal blood line of the ICD documents.  They claim that truth will “free us all.”  When found, they plan to kneel in worship of the forgotten realities that have been concealed for decades by ICD and the sinister society that surrounds it.

John Hunt, MD is a pediatric pulmonologist, allergist, and immunologist, and author of a satirical medical novel, “Assume the Physician” that must be read by every person on the planet.  Today preferably.  Profits from sales of the book support his non-profit Trusted Angels Foundation.