This Is the Way the World Ends

not with a bang, but a sneeze? With apologies to TS Eliot.

Lately, everything I read or watch seems to involve the flu destroying civilization as we now know it. I caught a 30 minute sneak peak of a BBC show called Survivors. These survivors aren't lolling around tropical islands trying to outwit each other. They are people trying to survive a flu which kills 99% of the population. Medical care is practically non-existent, public transportation has ceased, and the power is going out all around London. It was chilling and totally involving.

Then my latest Netflix DVD arrived. It was Carriers, about two young men and their girl friends seeking safe haven from what else, but a flu that kills everyone it infects. There were many tense moments and some tough moral questions posed. If contact with an infected person would lead to certain death, would you desert your loved ones to save yourself?

After that I started reading Veracity by Laura Bynum. This novel's premise is that half of America's population is wiped out by a pandemic/viral terrorism. A new government forms; the Confederation of the Willing. All personal freedoms are willingly sacrificed in the name of safety and security. Citizens are implanted with a device that can physically punish or even kill them if they utter a word banned by the government. The list grows every day, and a generation grows up not knowing what the words like freedom and democracy mean. If you enjoyed the Handmaid's Tale and 1984, you will like this creepily plausible vision of the future.

Today my co-worker is out sick.... I think I am starting to feel paranoid.