Many publishers send us books here at City Paper. Recently, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services mailed us a horror novel.

Terrorism and Other Public Health Emergencies is a slick, fact-crammed catalog about the exciting and grisly ways we could die, courtesy of terrorists. You can read it online at www.hhs.gov/emergency.

The book is a resource for reporters and editors in the event of, God forbid (or God willing, depending on your worldview) an attack. The potential nightmares break down into three classes: biological, chemical and radiation emergencies.

For example, there's a chemical weapon called Lewisite—developed for World War I, but not used in that conflict—that within seconds can give you a bloody nose and swollen eyes. Within hours, you'll have blisters and low blood pressure. Within days you'll have lesions, and eventually, you'd go blind. Another helpful fact: Lewisite, also known as L, smells like geraniums.

Certainly good information to have. I'm all about the extra info, especially when it concerns ways my life might end. But as I read further, I began to realize how out of our control these potential disasters are. And how limited our personal choices can be.

Say Anderson Cooper breaks in on CNN to tell us that terrorists have weaponized pneumonic plague, and spread it near the Liberty Bell a few days ago.

OK, get a grip. Let's open the wallet guide, and take a look at the description: Lung infection caused by bacteria. Could be released into the air. Symptoms begin within 1-3 days.

And the symptoms? Rapidly developing pneumonia with fever, cough, chills.

So what do I do? Immediately seek medical care. Contagious through coughing.

In other words, find a doctor and try not to cough on anybody. Just like everyone else in the city who's heard the alert.

This is the advice given for every biological agent: either "Contact your health provider," or "Immediately seek medical care."

And there's not much you can do when it comes to those chemical agents, like our friend Lewisite, or mustard gas, cyanide, arsine, chlorine, phosgene, sarin, soman, tabun or VX: Leave the affected area. Immediately remove clothing, place in a plastic bag, and shower or wash. Seek medical care if exposed.

Dirty bombs or nukes? Well, same thing—seek doctors, get naked, shower and cover your nose and mouth with cloth. And pray you remembered to put batteries in the radio and hope the government will tell you what to do next.

Growing up in the 1970s and '80s, I've had this keen sense of a giant guillotine poised over the entire human race. I went to a grade school, after all, where a teacher passed out an article describing—in disturbing detail—what would happen if a nuke hit the Gallery. The Liberty Bell would melt. The U.S.S. Olympia would be blown out of the Delaware River and land in the middle of a Camden neighborhood. Cheery stuff like that.

And now there are dozens of guillotines waiting to strike. The threat has never been greater, if you believe what the government is telling us. It's easy to get lost in panic. Which may be the point.

So maybe it's fortunate that I live in a city like Philly, and I don't have time to dwell on Lewisite or anthrax.

Because despite obsessing over this stuff for days, it took one news story to pull me from a nightmarish possible future into the quite scary enough, thank you present.

It was the story about the 15-year-old Rhawnhurst boy who died from a .38-caliber bullet wound inside a house just a few blocks from where my own children eat, play and sleep. (As of press time, one of the boys charged with the shooting was still at large.)

There are the possible attacks the government tells us we should be concerned about, and prepare for. Then there are other kinds of attacks that happen all too often in this city.

One's a fuzzy possibility.

The other happens all the time.

And there are no guides for this kind of attack.