Author's Note on Small Moments in Time

Until AIDS, the Spanish Influenza was the worst plague of modern times. It also had a somewhat odd origin and an odd pattern of who it killed. Unlike most illnesses that are dangerous for the old and weak, the Spanish Influenza killed those who were the strongest. Young adults were at the most risk. Modern science has determined that was because the Spanish influenza killed by turning the human body’s own immune system against it. The stronger the immune system, the more at risk you were. Now, in recent decades, official rates for all sorts of auto-immune diseases where the immune system attacks the body have been rising dramatically. The reasons for this remain unknown, but what it has in common with the Spanish influenza is the paradox that a strong immune system can be the human body’s worst enemy. As a result, in this story when a time traveler gets involved in the Spanish Influenza, he faces the most difficult choice imaginable.