A Snake-Like Encounter

On the Central Line tube this morning I stood next to a man in his mid-thirties. It was after rush hour so the carriage was not too crowded. The man inspected his hands carefully, one after the other. He seemed mesmerised by them as he turned them this way and that, holding them close to his face. I noticed that on his left palm he had a severe, livid case of eczema that spread across the base of his thumb and around his wrist like a crusty bracelet. He began to gingerly probe this with his right index finger. Then he began to delicately scratch at the edges of the afflicted area with his fingernail. I turned away, rather repulsed, as the scurf-dust fell away. Two stations later I happened to glance back at the man, who was now emboldened in his task and was furiously peeling great flakes of sloughed skin off his hand and flicking them away, out onto the carriage floor. Stepping over the sheets of  his derma-slag I got out at the next station and carefully checked my shoes for any of his DNA.

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