Code Orange

Mitty watches a basketball game with his parents. While his parents are excited as usual about the game, all Mitty can think about is smallpox infecting the crowd of 11,000 spectators.

When he goes to bed that night, he can’t sleep. He wonders if he will end up like Typhoid Mary, a woman who accidently spread typhoid to numerous other people in the early twentieth century, and be treated merely a specimen to be handled with care, no longer a person with feelings:“Nobody had cared what the poor woman thought or hoped for. Her life didn’t matter. She was a threat. Lock her up” (107).

He also thinks that he will be judged by history as the person who brought smallpox back into existence. He worries about his potential to destroy many lives and change the world. The city he loves so much “would go through hell, all because Mitty Blake had done his homework for a change” (107).

Overcome with fear and disgust, Mitty puts the envelope with the scabs in a trash bag, soaks the contents, and then throws the trash bag down the trash chute. He wonders where he can go to isolate himself in case he gets sick. He fears losing control of his body and his choices, worrying about what could happen if the government is making his medical choices.