Fade to Quiet

Well, the new fear today is getting your face eaten. Yesterday, the fear was having your rights of partnership dissolved, your gas price gone over the 4 or $5.00 mark. And before that it was getting bombed by your neighbor in the hijab, your other neighbor being shot in a hoodie. Before this, there was the fear of the hijacker, of the office building exploding, and before that there was the fear of the things that happen in farther away places than the mailbox that may or may not contain the letter laced with anthrax. Remember when the Tylenol first was “tampered with?” Remember the way we checked for razors in the Halloween apples and the candy spilled out from the pillow cases (because I grew up in a neighborhood where you could acquire a pillowcase of candy in a night) and a worried parent held each piece up to the desk lamp, searching for the  torn wrapper, the steel eyes of death tucked inside the taffy, and before this there was the terror of the too quiet room, the blan...