The Treeman

Do you mean how the nails are more like horns? Or the bark-like way the warts are covering his hands? What did it remind you of?

Two things:

1. The elephant man

2. The shallowness of humans

I thought of the Ents from the Tolkien stories about the Hobbits. Lord of the Rings.

Poor dude - when I was a kid, I had several small warts on one knee, and went a summer w/out wearing shorts I felt so freakish. I needed people to believe I was not a wart infested freak of nature, and acceptable to them more than I cared about sweating in hot denim jeans in the insane humidity & heat of a NJ August.

Now thats a freak - a kid in sweaty jeans all summer so that he is accepted by his peers..

This guy must be someone to meet though - think of the changes he must've been through so far in life, how it must have shaped him to become above it all.

Ents, indeed!
Well, the stories that Tolkien used to craft his worlds were based on earlier sources. Makes you wonder how common this version of papiloma was in the past. Wouldn't be hard to imagine someone infected living in the woods, away from people... like a leper... or an Ent.

You are right too, Manitou. People are shallow, we slow down at accidents and stare at those less fortunate.

I wonder if something so simple sounding could really help this guy regain some normality.