Medic!

OH NO.

“Settle down, loser.”

What happened?

“This? Nothing. You should see the other baby.”

Nephew on the Dead, you tell your uncle what happened.

“I scraped my arm in the park. It’s just a boo.”

I think you mean a boo-boo.

“No, it’s not that bad. Just a boo.”

Ah.

“I think the lady and the guy are overreacting. We didn’t need to come to the doctor.”

You scraped your arm in the park?

“Yeah.”

The park in Brooklyn?

“Yeah.”

You needed to go to the doctor. New York City parks are between fifty and seventy percent pure feces.

“I was fine. My arm was turning a healthy scarlet-red.”

Uh-huh. That means it was infected.

“What’s that?”

Well, you know your skin?

“No. What’s skin?”

Your alabaster coating.

“Oh, skin. Yeah, okay. What about skin?”

It’s amazing. Water-tight, air-tight, and best of all microbe-tight. See, the entire world is covered with filthy little bugs, tinier than we can see with our eyes, and those bugs want to get inside of us and eat us.

“Did you deliberately choose the most terrifying way of explaining germ theory to me?”

Can I take it back?

“Nope. You’ve totally installed a primal fear. Thanks, Uncle.”

It was gonna happen soon, anyway. So, our skin keeps out bacteria and viruses and all the other oogie-boogies, but when you get a cut, they get up in there.

“And then?”

Are you talking about human history up until 1928 or after?

“What’s the difference?”

Penicillin.

“What’s that?”

A fucking miracle, Nephew. Before 1928, you got an infection and you laid down and died. That was it. Your family would then eat you or sell you because everything about the past was terrible. But in ’28, a guy named Fleming left some bread out on a table overnight or something. I am not intimately aware of the details of the discovery. Your uncle was not a good student. But he discovered what we call antibiotics, and they’re just wonderful. You got some today.

“Is that what they kept jabbing me with?”

Yes.

“Huh. Question.”

Shoot.

“The cure for cutting your skin is puncturing it?’

Welcome to Earth, Nephew. Nothing here makes sense.

“I’m getting that.”

Your hair looks great.

“Woke up like this.”