Unreal

[WARNING: I found this story to be pretty disturbing... it isn't violent or offensive, but unsettling on a very basic level.]

A man in Indonesia cut himself as a teenager.

And, before long, he started growing warts, which kept growing...

Into roots. Or, more accurately, root-like growths.

This gets to me. This mans body turned into... something else, something alien. This is the exact same body anxiety movies like Alien play at: that your body is turned into a host for another organism, eating at your humanity.

This stuck in my mind for days; particularly when he shows off his hands in the video.

But, if you're interested, the video is the only way to get a real sense of what these growths are.

With a week's worth of distance, I find this scientifically fascinating; that HPV could run so rampant belongs on House, and the final result is right out of The X-Files. But I am still deeply unsettled... I hope that, someday, doctors are able to remove and restrain this man's unnatural warts, so he can use his fingers again.

And I hope I never get warts like that.

Good luck, brother.