Keratosis

Your skin is changing. It is becoming thicker, rougher, harder. In some places keratinised fields are forming — dry, uneven, sometimes scaly, sometimes tinged with a reddish hue. You run your fingers across them and feel: this is no longer the smooth, living surface you know — it is a layer that has settled over you. An armour.

Medicine knows many forms: actinic keratoses, caused by years of sun exposure. Calluses and thickened skin that grow at pressure points. Keratosis pilaris, the rough "chicken skin" on upper arms and thighs. Seborrheic keratoses, the age spots that look as if they've been stuck on. Each has its own story, its own risk factors, its own treatment. And yet they all share a common underlying movement: the body builds a reinforcement. It lays layer upon layer. It makes you thicker — where it considers you unprotected.