Dreams

Chapter 15

It was getting late by now. I'd turned on all the lights, tired of hiding in darkness, but my curtains were still closed. Inside my room it felt like it could have been the middle of the day, and I'd just been lost for a while. Like when you take a very long bath in a well lit bathroom with boats on the shower curtain, and when you finish you're not sure where you are or what time it is. So lost in the boats, and the warm, sudsy water.

I turned on my radio and turned it up as loud as I could stand it. I had never heard the song before in my entire life, but that was just fine by me. I danced to it anyway, bobbing around my room ungracefully, occasionally throwing in a few random ballet moves, doing turns and dramatic swan arms without caring how they looked.

There was only one pair of scissors in my room: a crappy pair of kids scissors that barely fit all my fingers in the handle (and I have small hands). They would have to do. I eyed myself in the mirror, judged about the length I wanted, and took a huge snip out of my hair.

Did I question what I was doing? Did I have second thoughts?

That first snip of the scissors sounded as loud as a starting pistol. It seemed to take forever, while the whole world (all of it I've ever known at least) hung in the balance. And then the hair fell, oh so gracefully, like the beautiful dancer I wish I was, and landed on the top of my vanity table. Vanity, what an odd thing. As vain as I might seem I don't enjoy myself. That long hair is for the benefit of other people, not me. Those long lashes, painted black, don't do anything for me. I almost never see them anyway.

That first piece of blonde hair seemed to fall in slow motion, and when it hit it was like a body hitting the floor. Like a heavy rock, crashing down and startling everything around it. And suddenly everything was fast again and there I was, and the universe didn't hang in the balance, it was just me in my bedroom, cutting my hair with kid's scissors.

It was too late for second thoughts.