It is a first person story from the view of a highly decorated army officer born and raised on a family farm and so far has spent the whole time talking about the realities of family farming, a few pages on getting stuck under the command of dumbasses... and mostly on the spread and early days of "the plague" and how different parts of the US fared, responded, etc. Along with mentioning that it killed over 30% of the nation, which fared far, far better then anybody else... and why that was. Things like not having socialist health care and how americans enter readily into voluntary social associations and practise social trust of others where people in other cultures just don't do that outside of family or tribal groups.
And how the Americans in the "red" states and counties do/did this during "the Plague" to a far greater degree than did anyone in a "blue" county or state. Because the Liberals all sat around waiting for "the king to come fix things" because what they really are/were in spite of all their crap about communality is Old World aristocrats for whom anything beyond their own yard or close family is the King's problem.
Ever heard of a barn raising happening anywhere but in America? Where you go spend all day working hard to build somebody else a barn, on the trust that even though they are not family or of your tribe, when the day comes that you need a barn built they will show up and help you build it?
Or hear about how on 9-11 people with private ferries and boats took twice as many people off of Manhattan Island as the govt. evacuation did?
The author also mentions the SARS virus and how it killed a thousand or so people with a death rate of 50%. But of the 50 in the US that got it, nobody died. And then goes on to talk about wait times in countries with govt. run health care compared to wait times in America, where just about everyone has their very own private doctor they can go to.
It is like Patriots so far in that it informs as much as entertains.
Here's a couple of bits from the last dozen pages or so...
Note: One function of the H5N1 is that children rarely suffered from the cerebral infection stage or did so moderately...
Thus, unfortunately, children often broke out of their illness to find dead parents. Kids, keep that in mind when your parents are freaking out if you get a mild fever. The reason you only have one or two grandparents is that your parents found their parents dead of the plague.
Mommy wakes up covered in sweat but clear-headed. Her husband is dead by her side. She finds her children in the kitchen eating cereal; the only thing they know how to make. There is no power and the water runs for a moment then stops. She hugs the children and tells them Daddy has gone up to heaven. The children are shell shocked. They know Daddy is dead. And he said bad things to them before he died. So did Mommy. They're terrified but she comforts them as well as she can and gets them something better to eat. That, at the moment, is the most she can do.
Mommy tells the children to go out in the front yard and not to come in the back yard or the house until she tells them. Weak, dehydrated, and just recovered from a killer illness, she nonetheless drags her husband's heavy body into the backyard. There she digs a shallow hole and puts him in it, wrapped in a sheet from the bed. It's spring. She looks around the yard and, despite her aching bones and fatigue, picks up the plastic tray filled with pansies that were supposed to eventually ornament a planter on the front porch and arrays them across the tilled earth that is all she has left of her lover, her friend, her mate.
Across the United States there are these small monuments to the horror and glory of the Plague and the response of just everyday people. Flower beds across our God-kissed nation rear up from the bones of the dead, their death bringing new life and beauty into the world they have left.
My father is buried under roses.
