If I am successful with book #1, this will be at the begining-ish of book #2 which I realize is pushing my luck, but I don't care.
The word "thixophobia" is an unusual one which refers to the fear of touching a fellow human being. The first person in history to suffer from thixophobia was a woman we know today as Typhoid Mary who, in order to avoid physical contact with other people, invented the disease typhoid and appointed herself as its primary vessel, successfully discouraging her friends and acquaintances from touching her ever again. She did not, in fact, carry the disease as many have been led to believe, and thus, we understand, any subsequent outbreak of typhoid was purely psychological.
However, to return to the point at hand, Typhoid Mary's thixophobia was not brought on, as one may guess, by a fear of germs, but rather from an uncomfortable stirring in her soul whenever she happened to brush a hand or foot past the body--living or dead--of a fellow human person. Each time this happened, her soul seemed to flinch and say to itself, "Self, that Thing you just touched is a Person. Tread carefully. If it is in any way damaged, we shall reserve this week's ration of bread and water for the rats."
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