Using the 3D model, I could zoom in to explore the worn paper like an alien landscape. I spun the model around with endless mouse-clicks, and set a virtual light source to orbit the model from every possible angle. After watching some online tutorials, I plugged the infinitesimal measurements of the model into a statistics program that exaggerated deviations in the form. The model was stretched and distorted to turn formerly invisible indentations into sharp fissures that took on the familiar five pointed formation left by the grip of a hand. A man’s hand by the look of it, probably quite tall. Duncan had never married, and seemed surrounded by questions about her sexuality, but anyone from her life could have gotten hold of these cards, and held onto them, literally, for a long time.

Then again, maybe the scan wasn’t a sure bet. I noticed a dark line jotting through one corner of the model and assumed it was an artifact of the scanning process, until I looked at the deck and saw an identical line stuck to the real thing: a navy colored thread. Worried about contamination, I looked around the room for any fabric that might have ejected a piece of itself onto my cards, but found nothing. A macro photography lens and some Googling helped me identify the thread as wool. It could have come from anywhere, but I imagined it belonging to the owner of the invisible hands; a thread tying me to another time and place.