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This morning, I woke up bald. Not “bold”, as in brave and eager to face the day. Rearing and roaring. But “bald”, as in, without hair.
I didn’t notice at first. Not until I reached the bathroom, that holds the only mirror in the house. For a moment I thought I had an uninvited guest. I did not have much hair on my head to begin with. Only a day before, the hairdresser had sheered most of my skull to a close-cropped coupe. All except for one long lock at the front. But even those mere millimeters were enough to surprise me. Especially with my eyebrows missing.
That made the strange face in the mirror look even more surprised than I already felt.
Rather groggy (and half thinking I might still be asleep), all of this could have been a bizarre dream. I made my way downstairs where my cat was meowing in a most desperate fashion. When I neared his hiding place, behind the large chair in the living room, I managed to coax him out with soothing sounds and tasty treats.
Seeing my cat made me realize it was not a dream. The same thing which had befallen me in my sleep had also happened to him. He sat, in the middle of the living room carpet, licking the taste of fish from his paws, completely Au-natural. That is to say, with not a single hair on his wrinkly house-cat body. At that moment, Gunk came into my house.
Now, it’s not that I think of Gunk as soon as anything breaks or vanishes or goes wrong. The plumbing might break, or the WIFI not work, or the stove accidentally catch on fire, or all of my chocolate cookies unexpectedly run out, entirely without her being involved. However, appearing at this very moment, her involvement did seem more likely.
Her appearance reminded me of the last time we had spoken, the day before, when I got back with my new haircut. To Gunk, the entire concept of having your hair cut was alien. Especially using scissors. Apparently, she only needed to concentrate real hard to get a different length of hair, a different style, or even a different color. She thought I had lost my ability to do the same. She just couldn’t understand how we humans get on without being able to change our appearance at will.
I had tried to explain to her that I had asked them to cut my hair because I wanted a different hairstyle, but she didn’t seem to be impressed by their work. I thought my new coupe made me look dashing but Gunk just shook her head and puffed her cheeks.
My thoughts turned to the present as Gunk looked up at me with a sparkle in her eyes and said "That’s much better isn’t it!"
"Gunk" I inquired, trying to keep anger from my voice, "have you done this?"
"Yes! You’re welcome! That barbarrer of yours only cut of most of your hair so I had to do the rest for you! Next time, you just come to me. I can do barbarring to!"
"So..." I continued, trying not to offend her "could you also maybe, uhm, undo this?" As I had feared, she already began to pout. "Did I not do it right?" she asked. I wasn’t sure if I was mad at her or just mildly upset, but seeing that disappointed look on her face did put me in a friendlier frame of mind.
“I could try to fix it,” she pondered, biting her lip, “but I just don’t know. I like this look on you. And on the cat!” she finished, with a mean little smile. "If nothing else", I exclaimed "can you at least grow my eyebrows back!"
“Okay” she said with a roll of the head and a shrug of the shoulder. With that, she headed for the cat flap.
While she was gone, I set about my morning routine, as usual. Or as usual as one can after having unexpectedly become glabrous (meaning: without hair). Even the cat showed less enthusiasm than it would normally have, when it settled in the middle of my newspaper, just as I was about to read it.
I had finished my newspaper, and the cat was hidden from sight again. As I was putting away my breakfast things, Gunk came storming in through the cat-flap and rounded the corner into the living room. A battle-yell filled the air, followed by a sound that can best be described as “Kerrrrrr-tzhing”. The next moment my cat shot out of the living room, flew through the kitchen, and exiting through the cat-flap at full speed. It happened so fast that I couldn’t be absolutely sure, but that blur speeding by did seem to be hairy.
With a pleased look on her face, Gunk strolled into the kitchen with a large, longish thing resting on her right shoulder. The thing she was carrying looked a lot like a popsicle stick and some twigs, stuck together with elastic bands, covered in moss, tufts of wool, and hair. There was a single blue magpie or jay feather sticking out at an angle. A faint glow hovered around its edges.
“It worked!” Gunk squealed. “I gave the cat his hair back! So…” she continued, “are you ready?” But before I could really answer, she swung the thing from her shoulder, aimed it at me and the faint glow became more distinct and shot towards me. For a very brief instant, the world turned bright, and then everything was normal again. I blinked my eyes a couple of times, to get rid of the blue after-image and, gingerly, lifted my hand to my head. To my surprise, my fingers felt hair. My eyebrows were back too.
My gaze turned to Gunk. She had dropped her hair-repair gun, which lay on the floor smoldering, emitting trails of smoke. Her grin was even larger than before and she was doing some sort of victory dance. To be honest, I was rather relieved that it had indeed worked. I might have even done a little shimmy myself.
Gunk’s effort to restore my hair had made it a bit longer than it had been before, and it also felt a bit more curly. However, I’m sure that having curls would beat going around without eyebrows! I felt a lot more self-assured as I headed out to catch the bus into town.
I got some compliments on my haircut from some of the storekeepers, although I didn’t entirely understand one remark about being a hip and in touch with the kids. That is, until it was evening.
Standing in front of my bathroom mirror, brushing my teeth, was the first time I could see exactly what Gunk had done to my hair.
I guess what really made people take notice was not the short, curly hair. Although that did give me a certain charm. No, what I think stood out to them might have been the fact that, instead of its usual color, large parts of my hair were a fetching, blackish-blue.
I’m sure Gunk hadn’t done that on purpose. Or, well, at least reasonably sure…