Eden

Twenty-Two

Thinking about that, I put my hand into my armpit. I would bend over and touch my legs, but I'm wearing a sleeveless dress, so touching my armpit is just as easy. I touch myself, and feel smooth skin, and then I think about that, too.

My skin is smooth, like I've just shaved, which makes me wonder if I have been. Whether the people in that first room, where I woke up, had shaved me. Or in some other way magically disappeared all my hair.

I stand there and think. On my head I have what feels like my usual, normal hair. As in, it's the same length as far as I can tell, and has been recentlyish tidied up. And yet, in my armpit I have none. And I assume my legs too.

I wonder why.

I mean, I'm glad. Don't get me wrong. I imagine the one thing worse than, you know, waking up not dead after all and maybe spending eternity in a weird dusty afterlife would be doing it with hairy legs, so this is a good thing. But it really seems a bit weird that whoever did this knew which hair to get rid of, and which to keep.

I really don't understand how they could.

Because the thing is, I'm pretty sure I'd feel a little stubble if I was me exactly how I was when I died. I remember when I last shaved, and it was in the shower, yesterday morning. So actually, as it turns out, I'm not me waking up exactly as I was. I'm waking up a little bit changed, a little bit tidied up. A slightly groomed me.

And that's just strange.

Because setting aside for now why anyone would do that, I still don't understand how they could. How could they know which hair I'd want to keep, and which I wanted to get rid of?

I mean, maybe they just tidied everything up. So what had been shaved they did again. And that makes sense, I suppose. Almost. Except that it seems like an awful lot of work for them, doing all that checking and thinking for every single person they revive. And also, it's slightly ick, thinking that maybe they examined me that carefully.

I'm not sure I like that idea.