In the story, a brilliant surgeon finds the dismembered hand and attempts the standard Faustian bargains — money, women, fame, talent — and each one brings him further ruin, culminating in the death of his beautiful wife. He wishes her back to life, but she’s already started to decompose, and upon her unnatural revivification screams in agony at her body’s liquescence. The surgeon tries to kill her again, slicing her head off with an axe, but thanks to his wish, she cannot die; she can only feel more pain. The comic ends with the doctor hiding her remains, hacked into tiny fragments that will wriggle and writhe in agony for the rest of time.

I was obsessed with the terror that this story produced, re-reading it several times every day for about a week and launching what would become a lifelong relationship with insomnia. Eventually my parents saw that I was turning into a little Howard Hughes and confiscated the book, but I knew that it was too late, that I was already cursed with the knowledge of the paw, and I developed a new obsession: Relating the story to everyone I could, in the hopes that this would free me from the terrible knowledge of desire. It didn’t work, but for a few days it certainly made life interesting for a sizable team of childcare experts.

Why am I telling you this horrible story? Because it relates, I promise, to a new comic out this week — The Silver Coin, a dark horror tale about craving something so much that it ruins you. Thanks as always to Phoenix Comics for reminding me of my childhood existential dread.