Scar Tissue

This scar is tiny and doesn't even compare to the some of the more horrendous ones I've seen. Because men don't often wear tank tops out and about I only ever noticed young women sporting scars all in the same place, at the top of the arm near the shoulder. Some people have barely perceptible scars, but just as many have massive ones that look as if someone took a chunk out of their arm with a crowbar. Since I tend to imagine the worst I thought there was a serial mutilist, or band of them, going around targeting young women and stabbing them in the arm with a screwdriver. Graham thought that was ridiculous, it must be a gang symbol. Then we heard a rumour that it's a scar from an epidural shot, which would explain why we only saw women with it.

Then Graham asked the owner of our apartment about it and the truth isn't too far off; within minutes of being born every child in Argentina is given a vaccination shot in the arm. Depending on the type of skin you have you either get a barely noticeable scar, a small scar, or a blight that distracts everyone who comes in contact with you for the rest of your life. He also mentioned it depends a bit on the doctor, and pantomiming Jack the Ripper he demonstrated how a scar can be left if the doctor is a little brutal in administering the shot. Which worried me because what kind of doctor is being careless with a needle and a newborn baby? But the strangest part of this story is that no one knows what the vaccination is for, everyone I've asked suddenly turns pensive as if the thought never crossed their minds before. Even a woman who just had a baby last summer didn't know what the shot was for. I'm perplexed/humoured/worried for these people.