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On occasion I travel outside the country of my birth, and the prospect always fills me with dread. I am a timorous, paranoid traveler and border crossings especially make me faint with anxiety. I understand that my fears are imaginary, but then, so are borders—after all, a border is just an invisible line defined by fearful men. Borders are intangible constructs of civilization; they don't exist but they can be located… and thus, they are real and the consequences for crossing them are certainly real—men are routinely killed when caught on the wrong side of a border. Borders are settled arguments; a border is the line drawn between schools of thought. To cross a border is to become a different person; for humans too are constructs of civilization. On one side of a border I may be law abiding, on the other, a criminal. By one country's standards I may be moral, while next door I am a disgusting pervert. In pre-Civil War America, a man who crossed the Mason-Dixon line might be transformed from slave to freeman or vice-versa.
