“It is my duty to report that these recent events are not something that this administration or any other previous administration was prepared for. We have elaborate and extensive contingency plans in place for terrorist actions, natural disasters, nuclear meltdowns, nuclear wars, race riots, class warfare, but we were not prepared for the pervasive spread of compassion towards other species.” So says the President of the United States in “The Plague (or There Goes the Neighborhood),” one of several short stories in this unique and witty collection that answers a plethora of questions that may not be on the forefront of everyone’s mind; for instance, What if a national state of emergency was declared because of an outbreak of compassion?