On Immunity: An Inoculation

by Eula Biss

If we source our understanding of the world from our own bodies, it seems inevitable that vaccination would become emblematic: a needle breaks the skin, a sight so profound that it causes some people to faint, and a foreign substance is injected directly into the flesh. The metaphors we find in this gesture are overwhelmingly fearful, and almost always suggest violation, corruption, and pollution.

“Vaccination works,” my father explains, “by enlisting a majority in the protection of a minority.”

Like Alice, I fell past shelves full of books, more than I could ever read. Like Alice, I arrived at locked doors. “Drink me,” I was commanded by one source. “Eat me,” I was told by another. They had opposite effects—I grew and shrank, I believed and did not believe. I cried and then found myself swimming in my own tears.