An old hand

In the midst of a brown study on a flight recently, staring vacantly at the bald pate of the chap in front, my attention strayed and I started in shock at the realisation of an alien thing draped across the nearby window port. What was it, this ALIEN thing? Somebody else’s hand!! Take the time to study somebody’s hand in intimate detail and be surprised at just how familiar yet utterly foreign it is – the freckling, the hue, the shape the cuticles, the hair, the skin texture...all unsettlingly instinctively known and yet bizarrely …alien. Perhaps it was just the ennui of travel, but its an unsettling experience.