the grief-therapy call: nails as the vestiges of talons and horns
You know, of course, that human nails are the vestiges of talons and horns. That they’re atavistic, like coccyges and hair. That they develop in utero long before the cerebral cortex.
Context
Hal closes the primitive-body thread Orin opened: the nails he's been superstitiously clipping are "the vestiges of talons and horns," atavistic remnants that "develop in utero long before the cerebral cortex." The riff literalizes the whole scene's undercurrent — the athletic body carries the pre-rational animal in its own tissue, the talon predating the thinking brain — so the streak's regression to "aboriginal terror" is grounded in flesh that is, at bottom, older and more primitive than the self that overthinks it.