Haircutgirl
Images of DeviantArt
The “Aesthetic Recalibration Pod” was the hottest thing in the city, a sleek silver capsule promising a new you in fifteen minutes. Kate scanned the digital menu outside, her long, honey-blonde hair spilling over her shoulder like a cape. Glamazon. Ethereal. Chic. Her finger scrolled past them all, her heart beating a steady, determined rhythm.
There. At the very bottom. NERD.
That was the one. It had been the one for weeks, ever since she’d first seen the ad. She wasn’t tired of her hair. She loved her hair. It was beautiful, and she knew it. But she was tired, in a deep and quiet way, of being just the beautiful woman with the beautiful hair. She wanted the freedom of plainness, the armor of uncool.
She entered her code, tapped NERD with finality, and stepped inside. The pod hummed to life, a gentle, promising sound.
The harness embraced her. “Aesthetic Recalibration to ‘Nerd’ initiated,” the voice chimed. Kate smiled, buzzing with anticipation. She envisioned an awkward, outdated bob, maybe some unflattering bangs.
Kate waited, expecting the snip of scissors, the feel of a new shape being carved from her long locks. The high-pitched, electrical whir from above made her blink. She looked up.
Gleaming, articulated blades descended. Not scissors. Clippers.
A bolt of pure ice shot through her veins. “Wait—” was all she managed.
The first blade touched her temple. Not a snip, but a profound reduction. She felt a rush of cold air kiss her scalp as a wide, silken path of pale gold fell away, fluttering down like a ribbon. Her breath caught. This wasn’t the careful shaping of a bob. This was something else entirely. The machine worked with breathtaking, decisive speed, tracing the curve of her hairline, defining her nape with precise tapering. The process was quick and absolute, transforming her familiar locks into a short, uniform fuzz that stood in stark contrast to what had been there just seconds before.
The humming stopped. The harness released her. For a long moment, Kate couldn’t move. Her hands, trembling, rose to her head. The touch was a revelation—a shocking, velvety fuzz, the complete exposure of her skull’s shape. A small, wounded sound escaped her. She had asked for this, but she had never, ever anticipated this.
She had no idea what she looked like.
She forced her legs to carry her to the mirror.
Okay, she thought. It buzzed it. It definitely buzzed it all off. That’s… extreme. It probably looks terrible. But… what if I like it anyway? The thought was a quiet, rebellious spark.
She made herself look up.
Her first thought was a silent scream: It’s awful.
The woman in the mirror was a stranger. Her face, once softly framed, now seemed all honest edges and wide, startled eyes. Her hair—or what was left of it—was a pale, even shadow over her scalp, a stark buzzcut that was brutally simple. It was neither masculine nor feminine; it was just there. It was the most plain, unadorned thing she had ever seen.
Her mind went blank, then raced. It’s… it’s so short. It’s just… gone. I look… She couldn’t find the word. Not awful. Not beautiful. Just different. A blank slate where a masterpiece used to be.
She stared, transfixed. This was an image she had no reference for, a version of herself that had never existed, not even in her daydreams. It was more than different; it was unfathomable. That first cold splash of surprise was now a fizzing warmth spreading from her core. She leaned closer, as if studying a fascinating artifact. She tilted her head. The stranger mimicked her. A disbelieving laugh, more of a puff of air, escaped her.
Then, with a soft click, a narrow drawer ejected from the base of the pod. Inside lay a pair of glasses—thick, black, rectangular frames.
Of course. The punctuation mark. A laugh, sudden and a little shaky, bubbled out of her. Of course. The final touch.
She picked them up, the plastic cool and substantial in her hands. She slid them onto her face, hooking the arms carefully over her newly-exposed ears.
The initial shock began to morph into a rising, breathless giddiness. A dawning, awe-struck realization rose around the cold stone of her regret. It wasn’t that she looked beautiful. She didn’t. She looked stark. She looked intellectual. She looked like someone who had quietly opted out of an exhausting game. She looked, utterly and completely, like someone else. And the most thrilling part was—that someone else was her.
A single, complicated tear traced a path down her cheek. Then a grin broke across her face, wide and unselfconscious, as the hope she’d barely dared entertain flooded through her, warm and bright. The woman in the mirror grinned back, all teeth and thick glasses and a glorious buzzcut. She brought a hand up to sweep her palm over the velvety bristles again, feeling the truth of it. She had done it. She had really, truly done it. And she loved it.
The sweet young lady enters the machine as one of the lovely and leaves the machine as one of the real people of the new age. Liberated and ready to go.