<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Quarantine, 1918<div class=""><br class=""><table width="100%" align="center" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" class=""><tbody class=""><tr class=""><td align="left" bgcolor="#ffffff" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 24px;" class=""><p class=""><font size="4" face="Helvetica" class="">There were towns<br class="">that knew about the flu before<br class="">it arrived; they had time to imagine the germs<br class="">on a stranger’s skirts, to see how death<br class="">could be sealed in an envelope,<br class="">how a fever could bloom in the evening,<br class="">and take a life overnight.<br class="">A few villages, deep in the mountains,<br class="">posted guards on their roads,<br class="">and no one was allowed to come or go,<br class="">not even a grandmother carrying a cake;<br class="">no mail was accepted and all the words<br class="">and packages families sent<br class="">to one another went unopened,<br class="">unanswered. Trains were told<br class="">not to stop, so they glowed for a moment<br class="">before swaying<br class="">towards some other place. The food<br class="">at the corner store never came<br class="">from out of town and no one went<br class="">to see a distant auntie<br class="">or state fair. For awhile, the outside world<br class="">existed in imagination, in memory,<br class="">in books or suitcases, deep in closets.<br class="">There was nothing but the town itself,<br class="">hiding from what was possible,<br class="">and the children cutting dolls<br class="">from paper, their scissors sharp.</font></p><div class=""><font size="4" face="Helvetica" class=""><br class=""></font></div><div class=""><font size="4" face="Helvetica" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Faith Shearin</font></div><div class=""><br class=""></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div></body></html>