The Circle of the After Life

One>>>

     "Ready for the scissoring, Lillie?" My sister, Jessica, asked me. I was about to get 5 inches of my hair cut off. My mother said it was supposed to be a trim. How gullible I am!

     "Stop trying to scare me! It's just a stupid haircut." I said. I knew this haircut would be the end of my popularity. Not that I was super popular anyway. My only friends were Delilah and Jeremiah, and they had been acting weird. They wouldn't talk a lot, and when they did, they were mostly whispering to each other. I could never really understand what they were saying, but sometimes I could make out "ring" and "fire". Anyway, a woman with a side shave was about to chop off my hair.

     "Come on back!" she said cheerfully.

     "Okay," I mumbled. I was anything but cheerful. I was about to get ¾ of my hair cut off, and my friends were barely talking to me. Whatever they were doing, I wanted in on it. But right then I was getting my hair cut. I saw my hair cascade to the floor. It was so depressing to see that. I had spent my 16 years growing it all. Right then I just watched it fall to the ground. I mean, it was just hair, right? Nothing to cry about. But I felt like crying. Soon enough, 8 inches were gone. My hair went only up to my shoulders. It was all gone.

     "It looks wonderful!" my mother said.

     "Thank you," I said to the woman who cut my hair. I didn't mean what I said.

     "No problem!" she said. Of course it wasn't a problem for her. I rolled my eyes behind her back.

     "You know, you don't look as bad as I thought it was going to be!" my sister said.

     "Should I take that as a compliment?"

     "Knowing me, yes."

     "Well, thanks. But I think it looks terrible."

     "It really doesn't!" she said. I looked away. It wasn't just the haircut I was upset about. It was that my friends were excluding me out of whatever they were doing. I wanted to know what this "fire ring" was, and I was going to get that information out of them. I was willing to do whatever it took to get into the "fire ring".