HairApparent
Prologue
It is funny how quickly life can pivot, reshaping into something you never thought you would experience. On the day I walked into Top Man Barbershop, I felt the weight of the world pressing down on me. My hair, once my crowning glory – long, flowing waves of chestnut that fell to my waist – had transformed into a testament of neglect. Dull, brittle ends and faded highlights told of a luxury I could no longer afford.
Everyone could feel the shift in the world around us. The government’s harsh budget cuts had slashed social spending and stripped us of our small pleasures that once felt like essentials. For many like me, a haircut became a distant dream, a distant memory of a simpler and untroubled past. The government’s plan had made history by emulating the spectre of an authoritarian regime. But what I was feeling most was not fear or desperation, it was resignation.
For months I had battled against the austerity and salvaged just enough cash to keep myself looking presentable while performing my lowly-paid job. I earned just enough to keep my daughter Emma in college, but the comfort that came from having small luxuries around us was dwindling rapidly. I had tried to stretch out the contents of my last bottles shampoo and conditioner, but even trying to hoard that precious liquid had become futile. The bottles were down to their last drops – ages old and barely effective – so it became a struggle for me to maintain an acceptable appearance for work.
So, when I learnt that my difficult circumstances qualified me for the government’s recently announced haircut vouchers, it felt like a lifeline. A cruel lifeline perhaps, but a lifeline, nonetheless.
Arrival
I had never thought a haircut could carry so much weight, contain so much meaning, contribute to so much loss. Even during that fateful moment when I stood anxiously at the threshold of Top Man Barbershop.
Bracing myself, I pushed open the door, stepping inside as a bell tinkled above the door. The pungent smell of hair products mingled with a faint whiff of disinfectant that seemed to cling stubbornly to the air, reminded me that I was entering a new world. A world where faceless unemotional bureaucrats would have precipitated the stripping of my identity.
I observed two people seated in the large chairs, each facing a mirror. A barber stood behind each one, forcefully manipulating their customers’ heads back and forth. With a skill born of experience, the barbers absently wrought their hairclippers, focusing on their mutual banter, showing no interest in their customers. The barbers’ uniforms were shabby, and the faded logo on their aprons did little to evoke trust. Unnoticed, despite the bell ringing as I entered, I perched on a rickety wooden chair pushed against one wall, and I waited.
I held my precious voucher tightly, a thin piece of paper that represented not just a haircut but a chance to maintain an acceptable appearance for work and consequently keep my job. However, a chill laced with dread threaded through me when I spotted one of the customers rising from the chair. I had assumed it was a man, given we were in barbershop and the barber was so vigorously wielding his hairclippers on the person’s head. However, it was a woman. A substantial pile of golden locks surrounded her chair. Her scalp, reflecting the flickering overhead lights, shone bald and bare.
My heart immediately sank. My eyes glanced towards the door. It would be so easy to flee. But then I looked down, observing the dry and damaged ends of my once magnificent hair and knew that I would soon look unacceptable to my employers.
As the woman departed, absently rubbing her head, her barber whispered a comment to his colleague as they both watched her leave. I doubted it was complimentary as they both burst out laughing when the door closed.
‘Next!’ barked the unoccupied barber, his voice dismissive, not even looking in my direction as he unceremoniously kicked the woman’s golden locks out of the way.
In response to his command, I looked around briefly. But I was the only one present, so I uncertainly began to stand.
Leaving me no time to think since his previous utterance, the barber turned to me, the smile on his face more menacing than kind. ‘Quickly, quickly,’ he urged impatiently, clearly uninterested in my struggles as he beckoned me forward with a talon-like finger.
Startled and ill-prepared, I hurried towards him, my heart pounding. Trying to gather my thoughts, I handed over the precious voucher, and a desperate plea slipped from my lips. ‘Please, sir, not too short.’
The barber laughed, a heartless snigger that caused the hairs on my neck to bristle at his uncaring attitude. ‘Bowlcut is longest of the FourBees,’ he scoffed, indicating a printed sheet with curling edges, taped carelessly to the wall by the mirror. It carried the government crest and pictured the limited range of approved styles.
‘Furbies,’ I questioned, confused.
‘Four. Bees,’ the barber smirked. ‘Bowl, brush, buzz, or bald. Take your pick.’
I shivered in horror. It was “Hobson’s Choice”, meaning I had no choice at all. But I had to decide, otherwise the government would brand me unfit for work.
‘Please, sir,’ I gulped, after briefly considering each of the FourBees, ‘may I have … er, a bowlcut?’ The words felt foreign on my tongue, but they tumbled from my lips as I resigned myself to my fate.
‘Good choice,’ he chuckled and, as soon as the words left my mouth, he encased me in a grubby, oversized cape. ‘It will be my pleasure,’ he added with a menacing smile, ‘but I am sure it will not be yours,’ he scoffed.
The barber yanked my long hair into submission creating a tight and unyielding ponytail, tugging hard enough that tears pricked the corners of my eyes. As the barber held my abundant locks firmly at my nape, I heard the unmistakable roar of hairclippers revving up behind me.
‘Please, sir, no …’ I whimpered unconvincingly, the words catching in my throat, not knowing what else I could say to stop, or even briefly halt, this previously unimaginable madness.
Surrender
Without the barber pausing for a second, I felt an insistent and painful tugging of the hair on my neck. I imagined the blade of his hairclippers annihilating years of growth of my long hair. Length that locked in the memories of my child’s youthful laughter, relaxed summer days in the park, and whispered secrets amongst friends.
‘Too late,’ the barber cackled as he brutally separated me from my memories.
Seconds later, he carelessly tossed my helpless ponytail into a large crate overflowing with mounds of hair of every conceivable length, texture, and hue. An irretrievable bounty of other women’s essence.
A barely concealed label on the crate carried the government crest and noted the contents were “Government Property – Hair Extensions for Export”. With no compensation paid for the former owners of the cruelly severed hair, it was yet more proof that officials were getting richer on the back of the suffering of the rest of us.
I was immediately distracted from contemplating conspiracy theories, by the rapid progress made by the barber. Moving with alarming speed and expertise, he carved a perfect bowl shape well above my ears, leaving a thick short fringe barely covering half my forehead.
Adjusting the blade of the hairclippers, the barber drove them along my neck, high up the back of my head, and around each of my ears. No hair escaped, and he rendered my exposed skin gleaming white and completely smooth.
What remained on my head was a government sanctioned utilitarian style. Those in authority judged it suitable for working in a lowly paid job, but it made no concession to beauty, leaving me a mere shadow of my former self.
The barber made no pretence at being interested in how I looked, as he continued to banter with his colleague. Nor did he ask my opinion of his work. He simply waved his hand dismissively as soon as he had snatched the grubby cape away from me.
‘Off you go!’ he ordered impatiently when, stunned by the speed and ugliness of my transformation, my legs were unable to make a confident move. ‘Next!’
A teenage boy had entered the barbershop after me and jumped up eagerly from the rickety chair on which I had sat less than ten minutes earlier. He stared at my severe bowlcut as I hauled myself out of the barber’s chair and sniggered, covering his mouth in a failed attempt to disguise his rudeness. The boy exchanged words with the barber as I lurched towards the door. As I opened it, I heard a burst of humiliating laughter from them both as I allowed the door to swing closed.
Escape
I stumbled out of Top Man Barbershop, disoriented and shaken. My disbelieving reflection stared back at me from every glass storefront as I walked by. While the face was the same, the hair was so different that I was unrecognisable, even to myself. An echo of someone I once knew, framed by a jarring bowlcut that exuded nothing familiar or comforting.
I brushed my fingers over the stark straight abbreviated lines, unable to comprehend why my ears and neck were fully on show. The feeling of normality that I had taken for granted before entering the shop, now bordered on embarrassment and humiliation.
Further down the street, I passed the salon I had previously frequented. It was a place filled with laughter, gossip, and the sweet seduction of luxury. I loved going there. Now it stood there as a grand edifice for the wealthy, just mocking my drastically transformed appearance.
A pair of freshly coiffed and expensively dressed women emerged from the salon. Their abundant highlighted hair gleamed in the sunlight, and I felt the bitter sting of envy. One of them caught sight of my austere haircut, her eyes widened in surprise, and she briefly viewed me with pity. Then she turned to her friend, said a few words, and their unbridled laughter haunted me as they passed me by. I could not help but feel small and powerless against their unkind mirth.
But, even so, the hardest moment was yet to come.
Sanctuary
When I returned home, Emma, my daughter, looked up excitedly from her studying before skipping over to give me a customary hug. As she approached, her loose golden curls bounced up and down on her back. Her broad smile that always lit up any room she entered, suddenly turned to a frown. She pulled up short in front of me, placing a hand on each of my shoulders. She stared at my hair and then gazed into my eyes as she searched for an answer to her confusion.
‘Mum, what’s happened to your hair?’ she squeaked, her eyes wide.
I swallowed hard, choking on the words. ‘I had to get it cut today,’ I managed to say, but the embarrassment surged. ‘To keep my job.’
Her eyes fogged with confusion, as the weight of my reality settled. I should have been the one shielding her from these realities, filling her world with whimsical stories and laughter, and supporting her studies. Not dragging her into a narrative of budgets, austerity, and sacrifices.
I tried to explain the impact on our lives, but her unchanging expression and the shaking of her head in denial, implied that my words were falling on deaf ears.
‘It is very short, Mum,’ she reminded me unnecessarily.
‘Yes,’ I whispered gloomily.
Touching my bare neck, she pulled back her fingers quickly, as if she had received an electric shock. ‘It’s shaved,’ she shrieked, clearly astonished.
‘I know,’ I whined, growing irritated by her continually reminding me of the unwelcome truth of my appearance.
Emma pulled back and, characteristically for my studious daughter, entered a silent period of thoughtful contemplation. After her initial reaction, I was confident that she was carefully reviewing what had taken place, then assessing the terrible impact that the events had had upon me. Knowing my daughter well, I waited for her to speak.
‘Can I still have my special shampoo and conditioner, Mum?’ my daughter asked timidly, fingering the tips of her golden curls that nearly reached her knees. ‘My ends really do need the attention.’
Her selfish words came as a surprise. I tried to force a smile, but the fatigue flickered within me. The light dimmed in Emma’s eyes as I met her gaze, and she did not get the answer she wanted.
‘Mum?’ she whined, disconsolately.
‘Well, we might need to find a way to get some more, as a reward for doing well in college …’ It was the standard line I had often repeated. But it was a shield against her disappointment, and she knew it. Emma would have also ascertained that my lack of enthusiasm made it unlikely that her wishes would come true.
‘But I always do well in college,’ she pouted, stamping a foot like a young child, and it was true. ‘So …’
‘I know,’ I murmured resignedly, ‘but most likely you will need to join me on my next trip to the Top Man Barbershop.’
Her reaction was immediate. A gasp of horror, and eyes wide with disbelief. ‘Mum! No! Not me!’
Realisation washed over my daughter. And, just like that, she fled the lounge and slammed her bedroom door, leaving behind echoes of despair. I slumped into a chair and buried my head in my hands.
The walls of our home felt suddenly closer, the ceiling lower, and the world outside, with its chaotic realities, loomed larger. I had made this enforced choice, but now we faced the consequences together. We had both inherited the fallout of the government’s budgetary mismanagement, a dark whisper of our government tightening its grip, demanding compliance while disregarding our individual stories.
Epilogue
As I had watched my daughter wrestle with the fear of losing a part of herself, a resolve began to unfurl within me. We might have lost the luxuries that made us feel beautiful, but we would forge ahead together. I resolved that we would create beauty in our lives beyond the physical.
And somehow, even if it seemed impossible now, I wanted my daughter to feel as radiant inside as she looked on the outside. I wanted her to act without fear, even if that meant fighting against a system that was trying to strip us of our identity.
‘Mum?’ Emma’s voice floated gently back into my consciousness. In my misery, I had not heard her return to the lounge.
I slowly dragged my head up and it was my turn to be astonished. Emma invariably wore her hair loose, only tying it back for practicality and releasing it as soon as she could. Despite its magnificence, I had often urged her to be more sensible and constrain it in some way for convenience. However, it was one of the few things on which we disagreed.
However, on this occasion she had managed to scrape back all her curly hair into an extraordinarily long and thick ponytail. It cascaded over her shoulder like a waterfall. However, when viewing just her face, the height of her hairline and the colour of her hair conspired to make her look almost bald. Not only appearing bald, but also looking attractive, in a strange and unexpected way.
My daughter smiled at me, and a wonderful feeling of pride began rising within me as I anticipated what she would say next. She ran over, hugged me, then spoke. ‘I decided we need to forge ahead together, Mum, so what time does the Top Man Barbershop close this afternoon?’
