Pandemics and Me

No cases of swine flu here in Kennett Square yet, no tumbrels stacked with the dead or anything. I know a fair bit about the Black Death and other plagues, so I have a pretty good stock of gruesome images that I can use as set design elements in my fears and imaginings.

It's interesting to me when a news story is so broad in its effects that you would know about it even without the media. It actually doesn't happen all that often. I remember how there were no planes in the air for several days after September 11, 2001. It was as if the sky itself had been shocked into silence. But other momentous events come and go without my ever knowing about them except through the media. Otherwise I might as well be in a yurt in the Mongolian countryside, for all they affect my daily life.

I'm not overly worried contracting swine flu or dying from it if I do, but you know how some countries are restricting travel to Mexico? According to a local agency that helps low-income Hispanics, they now represent 28% of the population in Kennett Square. Which means that Mexico is traveling to me.