The Hand

"The Hand" by Jerry Sohl is a science fiction short story published in the early 1950s. Set against the backdrop of a rural American farm, the narrative explores themes of alien encounters and the consequences of human actions. The story begins with the protagonist, Alice McNearby, discovering a severed human hand brought home by her dog, Dobie, and quickly escalates into a tense interaction with extraterrestrial beings in search of the hand. The tale revolves around Alice's tumultuous relationship with her husband, Mac, and their encounter with an alien who claims the severed hand belongs to one of his crew members. After Mac carelessly discards the hand, believing it to be worthless, he becomes increasingly hostile towards the alien. Tension mounts as Alice pleads for understanding, while Mac remains obstinately violent. In a tragic turn of events, Mac's cruelty culminates in him suffering a similar fate as the alien when his own hand is severed, emphasizing the story’s themes of empathy, greed, and the repercussions of one's actions in the face of the unknown. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Gerald Allan Sohl Sr. was an American television scriptwriter and science fiction author who wrote for The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Outer Limits, Star Trek: The Original Series, and other shows. He wrote more than twenty novels as well as feature film scripts. He also wrote the nonfiction works Underhanded Chess and Underhanded Bridge in 1973.