It reminded her of something she’d heard when she was eleven or so. One of those horror folk tales that kids told each other. About the boy who accidentally swallowed a needle.... Only to have it show up, years or decades later, rusty but still whole, in his ankle or kneecap or elbow ... silent steel entity sliding unknown and unknowable through his living breathing body ... while he grew up and married and held down some unremarkable service job ... till he goes to the doctor one day and says: Doc, I’m getting old, may be rheumatism but I have this strange stabbing pain in my leg.... Well, says kindly Doc, put ’er here under the scanner and we’ll have a look.... My word, Mr. World-Everyman, you seem to have a vicious septic needle hiding under your kneecap.... Oh yeah, gosh Doc, I kinda forgot about it but as a young boy I used to play with needles habitually, in fact most of my allowance went toward buying extremely sharp and deadly needles which I scattered lavishly in every direction, but when I grew up and got a little wiser I was sure that I’d picked up every last one ....