Mercy

As I stood in the awkward pose, standing on my left foot with my right foot up in the air, as the computer had told me to while the next round of disinfectant was sprayed over the annoying completely sealed bunny suit I was trapped inside for thankfully only a little while longer, my mind wandered.

The computer offered entertainment or to read messages to distract me while in the decontamination chamber next to the airlock, but I’d just decided to use the 20 minutes after each shift to gather my thought in the relative quiet as the computer only gently reminded me to switch to each new position every few minutes to make sure the mist of disinfectant could get into every single crease and wrinkle in the suit. The routine I went through regularly was oddly similar to the yoga routine I had started a over decade earlier, but only kept up with till I’d graduated medical school.

My mind had wandered to the time before I’d first learned about yoga from a fellow crewmate, how I’d left the planet I’d grown up on. I suspected the captain who had hired me had no clue the degree to which I had put all my eggs in one basket when I’d waited at the airlock of the ship I hoped and prayed would take me away with it. Between the cost of the test I’d bought to prove I could do Earth level highschool work and the cost of the shuttle ticket up to the station, I had spent every penny I’d earned working part time at the tractor factory after chores. I’d stolen a pair of pants to wear from my younger brother, and hadn’t packed any of the skirts and dresses that actually belonged to me, just a couple of blouses, a sweater, and underwear, before I’d gone and taken the shuttle up to the station.

If I hadn’t been hired that day, I’d have had no choice except to wait for my parents to come and get me from the station. It wasn’t like there’d be another ship in time for me to wait, at the time there was only one interstellar shipping and travel company, Stellar Path Shipping, a pure monopoly, the only way on or off most colonies in the settled galaxy. My home planet didn’t do enough trade to convince them it was worth stopping by very often.

If I’d had to go with my parents, I would have been in incredible amounts of trouble. Of course, taking my brother’s clothing was theft. I’d have also been in trouble for spending the money I’d earned since, even though it was legally mine, my parents had only given me permission to get the job at the tractor factory so that I could save up some money for my hypothetical marriage, the marriage that I didn’t want but was expected to enter anyway.

Sure, I was legally an adult at that point, I’d been sensible enough to wait even though I had hatched the plan long before the birthday that made me legally allowed to leave, but legally an adult and capable of living without my parents support wasn’t the same thing. Especially on the planet I had grown up on, a planet that had been colonized by religious zealots who felt women were created to obey men, first their fathers and then their husbands, since men were created in the image of the very masculine god we were expected to believe in.

**Dr Murphy. Turn ninety degrees right and raise your left foot,** the computer reminded me of the next position in the routine, that would assure that the disinfectant could reach the sole of the boot.

When the captain of that ship had hired me, she’d warned me that she might take me back to my home planet if I screwed up, and then insisted I had to get my hair cut off short. That had been even more terrifying. As much trouble as I would have been in for wasting the money that was supposed to help me and my hypothetical husband get settled and start a family with, and then stealing my brother’s clothing and dressing like a boy, I would have been in even more trouble for cutting off the hair that was supposed to help me be attractive for the hypothetical husband. I wasn’t even sure if the barber on the station would be willing to just give me a haircut instead of telling me that I needed to go home, like I knew the local barber in the town near my parents farm would have if I’d ever shown up asking for a haircut. But I guess the station barber was just used to the crewmen from ships, or maybe the station barber was willing because everyone said station dwellers were those who rejected the values that we had down planet, because he just happily help me choose a style that was appropriate for a freighter crewman and cut off my long brown hair. I will admit some of the reluctance to get the haircut was because I was just used to having long hair and been raised to think of it as pretty. At the time I’d only just started growing out the bangs that had previously marked me as a child, and had been kind of proud about looking like a beautiful grown woman.

It had all been fine though. I soon discovered that “don’t be a screw up” hadn’t meant you must be absolutely perfect, and the captain’s threat that she’d take me back was something I didn’t really need to fear. So my parents never saw the cropped hair that had taken a bit of getting used to but wasn’t really terrible.

My hair had grown back when I had started as a premed student at Trappist University, though I hadn’t gone for the fully terminal length that all the women I had grown up around had, but instead kept it trimmed to the layered above the waist bottom of the ribcage length that was fashionable on Trappist, plus I got color added to the dark brown hair, just a little boost from a gold overtone that added a bit of warmth and sparkle, which I never could have on my home planet.

Life first on the freighter and then on Trappist had been an overwhelming learning experience. I was stunned by the gaps I discovered I’d had in my education, that life had evolved, not only on Earth, but also in other places, and not been put on Earth by God and other places by the devil. That not everyone felt marriage between one man and one woman was morally obligated, that many places accepted all kinds of relationships.

The biggest eye opener though was when the freighter’s medical officer, Nurse Patterson, had gone over my medical records with me, and I learned that the chickenpox scars and suffering through mumps had been unnecessary, that on most colonies children were all vaccinated against such infections. On Trappist I learned if all colonies participated these ancient disease could probably be fully eradicated making the vaccinations unnecessary, but between Earth not offering them free of charge and colonies that had been settled by religious groups like mine had been rejecting vaccinations because suffering was seen as a consequence of sin, exposure was still possible.

Nurse Patterson had also assured me that the queasiness I had been feeling since leaving home wasn’t a punishment from God, but was just a little normal motion sickness and maybe nerves. Then he’d offered me something to make me feel better and convinced me just suffering through the queasiness didn’t improve my moral character. He convinced me that choices about treatment should be made based on weighing risks of side effects versus benefit of treatment, not on imagined moral value.

I had decided I wanted to study medicine because of the relationship I’d had with Nurse Patterson on that freighter. I’d known I wanted to go to a university and learn more about science when I had hatched the plan to try to get hired on a freighter, but I hadn’t really thought about what branch of science at that point. Heck, at that point I didn’t really even realize that science was such a broad topic that I would have to choose a specific branch.

**Dr Murphy,** the computer started with my name as it always did even though I was the only one in the chamber. **Turn ninety degrees left and lift your right foot again.**

As I shifted position my thoughts shifted from how I had left my home planet, to how I had come to be on this ship. I’d only been practicing as a doctor on Trappist for nine years when this ship, The Mercy, which was to be a mobile hospital, that would go to any system that had a large-scale medical emergency that was beyond its insystem capacity to deal with. The Mercy had been a generous gift from Papadopoulos Lines and the people of Toi to the settled galaxy.

Though the ship had been built on Toi, it was decided that Trappist made sense as its base for several reasons. Toi was very much at the edge of the settled galaxy, making it a long distance from all but a few smaller colonies. Toi had only just opened a small college of art and engineering, and all the medical providers on the planet had either been trained on Earth or Trappist, so they just didn’t have tons of doctors, nurses, and technicians to spare. Trappist on the other hand had the university full of medical students, sure many simply planned to return to their home colonies after graduation or to practice on Trappist, but there was no shortage of doctors on Trappist and many like me didn’t particularly want to return to their home colonies for a variety of reasons. Plus though it wasn’t quite as much at the center of the sphere of settled Galaxy as Earth was, since the wedge of space Trappist was in was the direction from Earth that had been most heavily settled it was a pretty quick to travel from it to many places. Even faster than from Earth much of the time. So Trappist just made sense to be Mercy’s base.

Then when it came time to staff the Mercy, I was placed high on the list. Obviously, first simply because I was a reasonably experienced medical doctor. But also because I understood what it was like to live on a colony with much more limited medical facilities than places like Trappist. And then to truly seal the deal, I was experienced with traveling through interstellar space, since I had worked on a freighter for five years before starting at Trappist University and not just come as a passenger in a pod like many students. I wasn’t the only doctor on Trappist with a similar resume, but there was enough need for doctors on the ship that every single one of us could have signed on and there still would have been open slots. Of course plenty had said they’d had enough of interstellar travel and preferred to just stay on Trappist where they’d started families, so those of us willing to go had been at the top of the list, and the competition for the remaining slots had only been among doctors who didn’t have much or any interstellar experience.

**Dr Murphy,** the computer. **Turn ninety degrees right and lift your left foot again.**

When the ship arrived at Trappist I had been moved by the speech Sarah Papadopolis gave at the ceremony. To my surprise my old captain, Captain Reyes, was there, I’d known she was giving up being a freighter captain and moving to Toi with her wife to become the captain of a passenger ship, but it hadn’t occurred to me that the passenger ship that Sarah Papadopoulos would be travelling to Trappist on, Rays of Sunshine, would be the same ship my old captain was commanding.

Captain Reyes had personally given me a tour of the ship. It was smaller than the freighter she had hired me to work on, but still a large ship, significantly larger than the shuttles that took people from planets to stations. She was most proud as she talked about the safety of the double hull that surrounded the ship and went into great detail about the way things were so much safer than things on the freighter had been as she showed me around engineering.

When we got to sick bay and pod prep’n storage, which were conveniently adjacent to each other, she allowed the ship’s primary medical officer to take over the tour. Nurse Bennet, who had also previously worked on a freighter, showed me around the much better equipped and spacious sickbay, which even had separate rooms for the office, exams and treatment, and rest and recovery. Surprisingly, there was even pediatric equipment, since the passenger ship was safe and comfortable enough that children weren’t prohibited from travelling on it. I was quite impressed.

Then Nurse Bennet led me into pod prep’n storage, which was more like a hospital ward then like the cargo area it had been on the freighter. Instead of exposed steel beams and hard plastic furniture, it had clean blue walls, flowing white curtains, and upholstered chairs.

There was a comfortable preliminary preparation area that was mostly like a few private exam areas. People could wait to be shaved until they’d boarded the ship, instead of being expected to travel to the ship already bald. Nurse Bennet was exceedingly happy that with the simple addition of something as basic as vacuuming clippers that sucked the hair directly into a bag that could go to the ships much more efficient recycling system, a thing that used centuries old technology, the need to shave a person before placing them in a pod was now something that could be carried out even on a drifting ship without artificial gravity.

Each pod was then in a private alcove with a curtain, where it stayed. The person would not only be put into suspended animation aboard ship in their pod, but also revived in the same place. Pod passengers were not off loaded and hauled around like cargo with their naked bodies on full display. Only medical staff, or possibly family, would look into the windows as needed to assure the wellbeing of the passengers, not everyone who happened to need to enter pod storage, not the handlers on the loading dock.

Next to each pod was a small locking cabinet similar to a nightstand the person could put their personal possessions in themselves, and then get them back out themselves when they were woken up at their destination. There was enough room around the pods that if the person in the pod needed care it could be done with the pod in place. There was even a seat in each alcove so that the pod passenger could do some of the final preparations sitting next to their pod, and if they weren’t travelling alone, the person travelling with them could have a comfortable place to sit while visiting with them.

Obviously not every unpleasant aspect of being a pod passenger could be fully eliminated, but it was obvious that being a pod passenger aboard a ship on the Papadopolis Line came with a level of dignity and care it hadn’t before. Plus, since the cost of being a regular passenger on Papadopolis Line was less than the cost of being a pod passenger on Steller Path Shipping, and on Papadopolis lines all passengers paid the same fare, people only went into pods by choice or for medical reasons, not because all they could afford was to be treated like cargo. Even unruly passengers had the choice between a pod or finishing the journey confined to the ship’s brig.

At the end of the tour of sickbay and pod prep’n storage, Captain Reyes and Nurse Bennet both pointed out that of course the facilities on Mercy would be even more extensive even though Mercy was a smaller faster ship. It being a hospital ship, it had more than half of its space dedicated to medical facilities. Decks full of exam and treatment rooms. Another full deck just for pods to transport patients back to Trappist if necessary, the areas around individual pods would be slightly smaller, but still have curtains for privacy. A couple of decks of beds for patients recovering. Plus cargo areas with equipment that could be set up on other ships, stations, or planets to provide aid on site when needed.

There were reasonably comfortable crew quarters and facilities, and some guest quarters for family accompanying pod patients. Then of course the engineering, navigation, bridge and stuff like that since it was a ship that needed to function.

**Dr Murphy. Turn ninety degrees right and raise your left arm above your head.**

Mercy had taken me many places.

Travelling on the hospital ship was very different from what travelling on a freighter had been like. Much faster, since the small ship didn’t need to travel nearly as far out of system to be far enough from a gravitational body to slip into a wormhole, plus when there weren’t passengers aboard, we accelarated at more than one-gee. Trips that had taken the freighter five or six weeks took us a couple. Plus, with the double hull and just generally more safety features, there wasn’t the same you must be prepared for a hull breach any minute concern. The filtration and recycling systems were much more efficient making water credits much less tight and generally fewer rules around not over taxing them.

I would have said travelling on Mercey was more pleasant, at least when we were just accelerating at one gee, but of course when I’d been part of a freighter crew when we reached a system, I could just visit it and enjoy learning about the new place. When Mercy arrived at a system, I had to focus on just keeping people alive and trying to make them whole again. Sometimes we were in a system for a while after the immediate disaster that had brought us to it and we could see some of it, but not always. So even though the ship itself was more comfortable, it wasn’t always fun.

I had expected Mercy to take me places, when I accepted the position, but I had never expected Mercy to take me home.

**Dr Murphy. Turn ninety degrees to your left and raise your right arm.**

I suppose considering all the things I’d learned about evolution and vaccines and what not, I should have seen the possibility, but I hadn’t. The virus had started in the dogs. The dogs that had been brought from Earth centuries earlier because they were good obedient animals unlike other companion animals that had been rejected.

On most colonies, as soon as a new serious virus was detected a vaccine would have been developed and that would have been the end of it, but of course on my home planet that would be going against the will of God. If the planet was to be visited by a plague that took a third of their dogs from them, it was because they’d sinned and this was their punishment. But of course, it hadn’t just affected the dogs, it had spread to the human population.

When we arrived, it was obvious that those who had sent the request for our help had been a minority.

**Dr Murphy. Lower your arms and spread your feet between forty to fifty centimeters apart.**

They’d been a minority who’d been grateful for our help. They’d readily accepted the treatments that eased their breathing and lowered their fevers, as well as the antivirals that help their recovery. Those who hadn’t been infected gladly accepted the vaccination we could have made enough of for the whole planet if they’d wanted it. They even said thank you to the doctors and nurses who stabbed them with the needles.

If that had been the whole planet, we’d have been done and just doing a little follow up care before we could return to Trappist, the place that I had chosen to live. The place I’d been able to get an education, feel joy without guilt, well less guilt, date all kinds of people casually. But the ones who had wanted treatment hadn’t been most of the planet.

Each shift I left the ship and went to the planet, where most of the sick people refused all but supportive care. Some changed their minds once the gasping for air began, others refused till it was too late. It had been a long time since any had budged on their rejection of preventive care, saying if they got sick it was God’s will. Some even refused supportive care. Many said we’d been sent by the devil to tempt them into damnation.

I’d struggled in the years after leaving unsure what I believed, but I just couldn’t believe there was a God who was supposedly good yet wanted us to suffer. I’d become sure that if there actually was a God, he was either a shit head not worth listening to, or that God was nothing like what I had been taught, and he, she, they didn’t want us to suffer and expected us to prevent it. Many days, I simply suspected there may not be any god, or at least not an anthropomorphic omnipotent one.

**Final position Dr Murphy,** the computer announced. **Stand facing the door with arms held straight out parallel to the floor.**

At the start of this particular shift, the person who had angrily said I’d been sent by the devil happened to be my mother.

She hadn’t recognized me at first, which was no big surprise, I was older than the last time she’d seen me and the plastic face shield on the bunny suit often was hard to see through anyway. I just stood by the foot of the cot she was in using the breath she was struggling to catch to fling insults at me, remembering being chastised for being too curious, asking too many questions, day dreaming when I was bored from the too easy worksheets placed in front of me, for being too messy, for wanting to do and learn things my brothers did as well as the tasks that were assigned to girls. I stood there feeling like a little girl again. I felt the shame I knew I shouldn’t feel.

It wasn’t until my mother gasped out between coughs, “I suppose your mother never taught you to obey God’s will,” that I shook out of my stupor.

“You did teach me mom,” I said as I sat down next to her cot. “I just don’t believe we can know God’s will. I don’t think that this is what God would want. Please just let us help you.”

**Cycle complete, Dr Murphy.** The computer announced, and the door opened for me to step into the locker room where I could get out of the sweaty bunny suit.

I went into the room and pulled off the face mask as I walked over towards the bench closest to the hamper I could drop the covered in smelly disinfectant on the outside but sweaty on the inside bunny suit in to be laundered. I breathed in deeply feeling the cooler fresher air enter my body. Technically the air on the ship was put through filters and oxygenators just like the air in the suit, so it wasn’t truly fresh, but the filters on the ship did a hell of a lot better of a job at making feel like fresh air than the small filters in the suit.

I pulled down the hood and took out the elastic that held my hair back, the first couple of inches were plastered against my scalp with the salt and dampness. I peeled off the sweaty suit, and tugged off the heavy boots. I separated the filter unit, and put it on the shelf to get cleaned out and recharged by one of the technicians. I stripped down to the tanktop and light weight boxer shorts I wore inside the bunny suit. I pulled off the heavy boots, and put on the light ship slippers.

There was a shower in the locker area, but I preferred to shower in my own cabin. So I went out into the corridor and began to walk there, not really caring that I looked like a drowned rat and probably didn’t smell great either, people would understand. Well they wouldn’t understand fully, they’d just figure it had been a long tiring shift, which was true enough, but of course it had been more than that.

I wondered if Robin would be there at my cabin as I walked, vaguely nodding as I passed fellow crewmen. The relationship with Robin wasn’t really official or serious, just a friends with benefits kind of deal. I only had sex with the nonbinary nurse when we were on Mercy, on Trappist we spoke occasionally as casual friends did, maybe an occasional date, but zey never just dropped in like when we were on Mercy. I’d always told zem that I didn’t want to kind of relationship that felt like it was going to lead to marriage. I really could use a friend at the moment though. I needed someone to rub my shoulders and listen after I showered. I could call Robin and ask zem to come, but something about that just felt greedy, so I just hoped zey would happen to be there.

“Hi Kath,” Robin greeted me from where zey were sitting and reading as I walked into my cabin. “Your shift was supposed to end hours ago?”

“I sat with a dying woman.” I simply said, and wondered why I didn’t say more since I had wanted someone to talk to. “I’m going to hop in the shower, you can keep hanging out if you want.”

“I’ll hang out,” Robin confirmed as I pulled the damp tank top off over my head, and dropped it into the laundry chute.

I stepped into the head, and went over to my shower stall. As I adjusted the temperature, I considered making the water freezing cold to wash away my sin. Rebaptism in near freezing water had been one of the things I’d had to endure frequently growing up. I would be sinful in ways that clearly proved to my parents that my first baptism hadn’t fully taken, that when I’d endured it previously I must not have had my heart fully open, and that it needed to be done again, and this time I must make sure my heart was truly open to receiving God. I would be forced to sit in the frigid water fully dressed in the white cotton robes shivering as my lips turned blue while my parents and a preacher prayed around me. I made the water warm instead, hoping to ease tense muscles instead of finding absolution.

I stepped under the comfortable flowing water knowing it would wash away the sweat and stink, if not my sins. I lathered shampoo into my long tangled hair, feeling the oils and salts finally loosen.

As the water washed me, I remembered how my mother had used her last breath, the breaths she struggled to take, to tell me I must be the reason god was punishing her. She told me failing to turn me into a righteous God fearing obedient person was her greatest failure.

I knew… believed…felt… I wasn’t sure… that I should be sad, feeling loss, and going through typical grief over the death of my mother. Really, I just felt numb, tired, and frustrated, and maybe a bit of…closure(?), but not quite. I told people many times “there isn’t one right way to grieve, however you feel is okay,” but I still couldn’t help but feel I was doing it wrong.

I turned the water off, stepped out of the shower, and stood in front of the mirror. There were no tears in my eyes, nor redness since I hadn’t cried earlier, just a blank wiriness. I wiped the clean water from my bare face.

I picked up a comb and began to drag it through the long tangles of finally clean hair. It had gotten too long for my taste, beginning to look like I was just letting it grow out to terminal length the way a good wife should to make her husband happy and prove her femininity. The color was both grown out and faded. I’d been scheduled to get a haircut and freshen up the color on Trappist when the distress message arrived, so of course I’d simply cancelled the appoinment. It wasn’t the first time that I’d ended up really overdue for a haircut and having my color redone by the end of a mission, but it was the first time looking in the mirror that it reminded me of being a teenager counting the days till I could leave. I remembered the last thing I’d had to do in order to leave on that Stellar Path freighter.

“Robin,” I called out into my cabin through the open door of the head, “would you mind giving me a haircut?”

————————————————————————

“I’m just going to trim the bottom,” Robin told me as zey pulled out the clippers from the cabinet next to the seat in the pod preparation area. “I don’t think I can do the layers without messing them up.”

Robin and I had pod prep’n storage mostly to ourselves, as I put a fresh clear bag onto the vacuum to collect my hair. There were only three patients going back to Trappist in pods this mission, they were going to have their very damaged lungs regrown when we got there, so checking and caring for pod patients only took a few minutes every few hours. Crew using the vacuum clippers on our longer missions had become normal as long as pod prep’n storage wasn’t busy. It was the first time I had ever decided to though.

It wasn’t a full salon or barber set up, since its primary reason was to shave patients not about style, but the chair was similar to one you might find at a salon both for practical reasons and because the designers had thought it would make people having to be shaved feel a little more comfortable. There was an optional mirror so people could decide if they wanted to see what they looked like as they were shaved they could. But if they didn’t want to, it could be lowered away.

The mirror was in the up position when we’d arrived since this mission the set up had been used exclusively by crew to trim hair. In general, most of the patients we had shaved for pods on this ship lay on gurneys unconscious instead of sitting in the chair. This mission, all three of the people we’d prep’d for pods had come up already on bypass, so they’d laid there unconscious while being shaved. Only one of them had been my patient, even though I had been trained on how to use the clippers, cutting five to eight centimeters at a time, so that the hose didn’t get clogged, I didn’t shave her. I was mostly focused on keeping her alive long enough to make it into the pod where we would put her into a deeper level of suspended animation than the standard for travelling or just wanting to keep a wound fresher. The deeper level meant her liver would also need to be regrown, but there was no way she would survive cycling up for cell regeneration. Instead the nurse assisting me had cut off the young woman’s hair, I hoped she wouldn’t be too upset about it when she woke up.

I stood next to the chair patients able to sit up would get shaved in feeling nervous. I was a little torn between just saying to Robin sure, and figuring it was good enough to stop looking like I wanted terminal length hair, stop looking like I came from the planet below us, and telling zem what I really felt I needed. I swallowed down the nerves.

“I don’t just want a trim.” I told Robin. “I want it short and easy. Something that won’t get all tangled up inside the hood of my bunny suit each shift. I really want it light and comfortable like when I worked on that freighter. You’ve seen pictures of me from when I worked for Stellar Path Shipping, right? I guess like three centimeters all over. It’s okay if it’s not perfectly even and stuff, I know you’re a nurse not a hair dresser. I can get it fixed when we get back to Trappist.”

I left unsaid, that I wanted it cropped and simple like it was when I finally escaped the hell hole of a planet we orbited and I wished I had never returned to. I took a deep cleansing breath and sat down in the chair.

“You sure you want me to cut it all off just to be more comfortable in the suit?” Robin asked a bit doubtfully. “We might not be here that much longer. We could just be here a few more weeks.”

It would have been a good time to finally start talking about all the things I had been dealing with. Wanting to talk had been why I had hoped Robin was in my cabin in the first place, but somehow I just couldn’t open up. At least not yet.

“I’m sure.” I said. “I don’t want to deal with it anymore, even if it’s for just one more shift.”

“Ok, if you’re sure.” Robin said as zey fixed the clippers onto the end of the clear plastic vacuum hose that would carry the locks of hair away to the recycler. “You can tell me when to stop.”

Robin gently pulled my long hair back, over my shoulders. Zey spent just a moment running zeir fingers through the long soft locks, checking for tangles or dampness that would make it hard to be sucked up smoothly. Since I’d dried and untangled the long mass one last time after Robin had answered “yeah, sure” to the request for a haircut back in my cabin, zey of course found my hair smooth and dry.

Robin picked up a comb and tapped the switch on the clipper. The clippers began to hum softly in Robin’s hand, and a slight wooshing sound started from the end of the vacuum. Zey nervously met my eyes in the mirror briefly before looking down at my hair and beginning.

Robin slowly combed down the length of one of the locks on the back of my head, and used the comb to lift it up the lock, keeping the comb about six centimeters from the ends. Then zey did it, Robin ran the blades of the clippers over the teeth of the comb.

Buzzzzzzoot.

I watched as the tufts of hair slid up the hose and began to fill the bag. I looked at the mirror, the reflection was pretty much the same as when I had sat down, it was going to take a while to deal with all this hair without clogging the hose. I guess it meant I would have time to change my mind if at some point before we got to really short it felt good enough. I felt Robin lift another lock up with the comb.

Buzzzzzzzzzzt.

I smiled as I watched more of the brown hair drift up the hose and into the bag. I was already beginning to feel freer.

Bzzzt, buzzzzoot, buzzzt, buzzzzzwooop.

Robin was taking the hair off fairly evenly all around, not shortening the locks completely haphazzardly, and was working zeir way toward the front. I watched as one of the locks dropped down to rest over my breast, and how the freshly cut ends brushed just around the bottom of my modest breast.

“This is about your usual length,” Robin pointed out, “but you want me to keep going?”

The hair looked better, like the length was a fashion choice, not a moral imperative. It would undoubtedly be a bit easier to deal with now that several centimeters were gone. It was the length I usually wanted it, but something about it still felt like a burden. Somehow it felt heavy, heavier than it usually did at this familiar length, heavy like an anchor.

“Yup,” I said, “keep going.”

“Ok.”

Robin lifted the lock back up with the comb, and sliced off another six or so centimeters.

Buzzzzzzzoot.

When the lock fell back down out of the combs teeth, it rested above my nipple, reminding me of the length it had been back in premed when I had decided to get it trimmed and styled the first time since I’d started growing out the short length I’d had to keep it on the freighter. The results of that haircut had been the first time a hairstyle had been purely my choice, not just what every girl on my homeworld had, not crew regulations, just something I wanted.

Robin combed up another lock and matched the slightly above the nipple length.

Buzzt, buzzzoot, buzzzzt.

I could ask Robin to just even it out at this length, let it remind me of that happy time in college, for some reason it didn’t feel like enough. The hair still felt like an anchor.

Buzzzzzwoop, buzzzooot, buzzt.

Robin had worked zeir way all the way around to the front on the other side, and the lock zey’d just cut fell slightly above my nipple almost the same length as the other side.

“Keep going?”

I just nodded, and watched Robin lift the same lock up again and take several more centimeters off the end of it.

Buzzzzoot.

Robin let the lock drop, it still fell just a bit past my shoulders, but it was the shortest I’d had my hair cut since I had resigned from being a freighter crewman. It felt like we’d passed a milestone I wasn’t sure mattered.

Bzzzzzzzt, buzzzzzwoop, buzzzzzzzot.

I watched in the mirror as my hair creeped up toward my shoulders, feeling just a little lighter. When it came time to take off the next sixish centimeters, Robin just gave me a slightly questioning look with one eyebrow raised. I just nodded to zem, and zey lifted the lock that hung just past my shoulder up again.

Buzzzzzzzzzzoot.

This time when the lock fell free from the teeth of the comb, it didn’t hit against me. Instead it hung freely, the severed end swinging loose a couple of centimeters above my shoulders. I smiled at my reflection, and found myself struggling to not shake my head just to feel the hair whirl around my head, but so far it was just one lock, so I just kept sitting still anticipating the moment that all the hair would be clear of my shoulders.

Buzzzzzwoot, buzzzooop, bzzt, buzzzzzzzzoop.

This time when Robin gave me a questioning look, instead of nodding, I took a few moments. I turned my head back and forth fast, feeling the short hair flying free. Then I reached up and shook it out with my hands.

“Gosh that feels good.” I declared.

“‘Gosh,’” Robin chuckled at my choice of expletive.

I gave zem a dirty look as I smoothed back down the much shorter hair I’d ruffled up. Robin had once asked me why I still used “gosh”, “darn”, etc as stand-ins for “god”, “damn”, etc after I had lived on Trappist for over a decade, I told zem some habits are just hard to break. I skipped telling zem how I’d been punished for saying “gosh,” as a child so it felt plenty strong to me. As it was zey thought it was cute and amusing that I said “gosh”, if zey knew about the punishments zey probably would think it was sad. I prefered if these moments brought amusement.

“Is this the length you meant by ‘three centimeters?’” Robin asked me. “It’s about three centimeters below your neckline, but I thought you meant shorter?”

“I did mean shorter than this,” I confirmed. “I was just enjoying it. I want it short all over. Keep going.”

“Ok.” Robin agreed, sounding both a bit nervous and determined.

This time Robin spent a moment combing the hair smooth, making sure it all hung fairly straight down. Starting in the back, zey combed the hair straight down instead of lifting it up, and held the comb against my neck right about at the base of my skull. Zey ran the clippers across the comb.

Buzzzzzzwoop.

This time, I felt the suction from the vacuum as it sucked away the cut off hair. Then without moving the comb, Robin began stroking the blades of the clippers down the back of my neck.

Buzzzz, buzzzz, buzzzzz, buzzzzz.

Robin finally pulled the comb away, and combed down to the left of where they’d cut. Zey lined the comb up between the base of my skull and the bottom of my ear. Then zey once again slid the clippers along the bottom of the comb.

Buzzzzwoop.

I watched as more of my hair slid up the vacuum hose and landed into the almost full bag. Robbin combed down again, this time lining the comb up between the bottom of my ear and chin. Zey again slid the clippers along the bottom of the comb.

Buzzzzzzzwoop.

I looked at the simple classic bob that framed my face as Robbin made the other side match it as close as zey could. Then zey stood back and paused, this time actually turning off the humming clippers.

“To go shorter,” Robin explained, “it has to be layered.”

“Yup,” I nodded the truth of the statement. “I really do want it shorter.”

“I only sort of vaguely understand layering on a pretty theoretical level. There’s a really really high chance I will mess up.” Robin warned me. “The bob is pretty cute and should be pretty comfortable in the bunny suit. Faster and easier to wash and detangle. Sticking to this length would be the prudent thing. Or you could ask around and see if you could find someone aboard ship who actually knows how to do layers. If you want me to keep cutting it might come out pretty aweful.”

I ran my hand over the bob. Robin was right, it was pretty cute, and would be a bit easier than the long hair had been. It was lighter than the long hair. I pushed my fingers into the front, letting them comb back through the hair. It still grabbed at my fingers, it still had weight, it still felt like an anchor. I swallowed.

Finding someone who actually really knew how to cut hair wasn’t a bad idea, but… it required effort I just wasn’t sure I wanted to put in. It would mean expaining to someone else why I wanted the haircut, and they might not be as up for just going along with it as Robin.

“I want it shorter, and we’re here and set up. I really don’t care if it’s not perfect.” I said.

“It might be really messed up, not just ‘not perfect.’ You sure about this?”

“Yeah, I can get it fixed back on Trappist. Heck at the rate things are going, maybe it will have all grown back by the time we get to Trappist.”

“I doubt we’ll be stuck here that long.” Robin chuckled, as zey resumed combing my hair.

Robin combed the hair above my forehead straight up, and turned the clippers and vacuum back on. Zey held the hair straight up, the comb about ten centimeters above my forehead with about five centimeters of hair sticking out from its teeth. As Robin brought the clippers towards the comb, the ends of the hair began to flutter towards the vacuum hose. When the blades of the clippers met the comb, the severed hair floated up into the hose.

Buzzzzzzzzzoot.

The shortened layers fell around my face. They actually looked pretty even, and I kind of wondered if Robin had underestimated zeir ability. Of course though, it was not as short as I wanted it yet.

Robin combed out the hair from the side of my head. Zey held the hair straight out just past my ear. This time it was louder as zey slid the clippers over the teeth of the comb.

BUZZZZZZOOT.

I watched the cut of hair fly up the hose, and the shortened layers fall over my ear. This time, the layers didn’t blend into the surrounding bob as nicely as the first layers had. I felt my jaw tighten just a little as I tried to remember I could get it fixed when we got back to Trappist, and maybe it will look better when it’s done.

I looked up at Robin, who expression told me they also didn’t think it had gone really well, but were unsure what to do about it. I looked over at the rather plump bag filled with my hair. Undo wasn’t really an option, so I looked back up at Robin and gave zem a quick nod and smile to keep going.

Robin put on a determined face, and combed up hair on the oposite side of my head, and obviously tried to match the angle and length to the first side.

BUZZZZZZZWOOP.

The sides did mostly match each other, though neither really looked good. Both sides just looked a bit choppy and disconnected from the hair around. Maybe I should have let Robin stop at the bob, but there really was little point at stopping here, so I just tightened my jaw slightly and tried to hold onto hope it would look halfway decent.

Robin combed up more hair, this time holding it out at about a forty-five degree angle over my ear, and sliced off more.

Buzzzzt.

Over and over Robin combed the hair up and sliced away a few more centimeters, each time repeating the same angle on the other side, except if zey held the hair straight up or straight back from the middle of my head.

Buzzzzzoot, buzzzzwoop, bzzzt, buzzzt, buzzzzwoop, buzzzzzt, buzzzooot.

As Robin worked towards the back, zey gently tilted my head down, combing up the short hair that no longer fell against my neck.

Buzzzzwoop, buzzzzt, buzzzooot, bzzt, bzzt.

I felt the comb behind my ear, scooping the hair up towards the clipper blades.

Bzzzzt, buzzzzt, buzzt, buzzzzzwoop.

When Robin let me look up, zey began to take more off the longer hair on top. Though for most of the haircut, Robin had cut about as much length as the vacuum hose could handle easily with each pass, this time, zey started taking less. I watched as a mere two or three centimeters was sliced off a lock Robin held out from my temple.

Buzzzzoop, buzzzzzoot, buzzzzt.

My hair was just about four or five choppy centimeters long, and Robin had gone to just trying to even it out as zey took off the last little bit.

Buzzzoot, buzzzzzt, bzt, bzzzt, bzzt, buzzoot, bzzt, buzzt, bzt, bzt.

I looked at my reflection, remembering how I’d felt the first time I’d gotten it cut to just three centimeters. I’d been so so anxious. Worried I would get in trouble, scared I looked like a boy. Also though, it felt like another act of rebellion to go with stealing my brother’s clothes and leaving for the station.

It had looked better that time, done by a professional so that the simple crop had laid softly against my head, the front had swept across my forehead in, though very short, flattering bangs that followed the arch of my hair line. This wasn’t as good, it was choppy and full of sharp lines. Though Robin seemed to be trying to fix that as zey slowly combed bits up and sliced off just a millimeter or two here and there.

The thing that really bridged this time and last was a feeling of freedom. Sure this time it wasn’t the same kind of rebellion, it wasn’t a necessary step to getting off the world that we slowly orbited above docked at the space station I’d gotten that first haircut at, but it still felt freeing. It felt light, like the anchor was gone.

**I’M CALLING A SENIOR STAFF AND CREW MEETING IN THIRTY MINUTES IN THE MAIN CONFERENCE ROOM** the captain made a ship wide announcement.

“You know what that’s about?” I looked up at Robin as zey combed my cropped hair forward, then combed a slightly longer tuft up and took about three millimeters off it.

“I’ve got no idea,” zey said with a shrug. “Just give me a few more minutes to try to even it out a bit more, then you can head there.”

Bzzzt, bzzzt, buzzzoot.

“Oh, hi Robin, hi uhhh” Gabby the nurse who was in charge of caring for the three pod patients came in. “Good God that’s a lot of hair!”

“I was just done with dealing with it getting all sweaty and tangled up under my hood when I’m wearing my bunny suit,” I explained, as Robin sliced off another millimeter. “I couldn’t face another shift with it.”

“Ohhhh….” Gabby let out in a slightly unsettled tone. “Ummm…. uhhh….”

“Do you know what the meeting’s about?” Robin interrupted whatever it was Gabby was failing to say, and sliced another millimeter of hair from a tuft behind my ear.

“Uhhh… yeah…ummmm… we’re going.” Gabby finally spit out. “We’ve been asked to leave. So ummm… no more shifts in the bunny suit…. Sorry Kath.”

Robin went pale and stopped trying to even out the drastic crop. “Oh…”

I just burst out laughing.

——————————————————————————–

“You know there’s no wrong way to grieve,” Robin said the same thing to me I’d told countless others, as we lay together in my bunk.

“I know. Just having a bit of a hard time believing it.” I said.

“You also know you aren’t supposed to make drastic changes while grieving,” Robin reminded me as I felt zeir hand gently stroking my freshly cropped hair.

“It was just a haircut,” I rolled my eyes. “It’ll grow back. Besides, if I hadn’t asked you to cut it short we wouldn’t be going back to Trappist. You agreed to it when I asked for it, so you must not have thought it was that bad an idea.”

“Yeah, when I agreed to give you a haircut, I didn’t know you’d just watched your mom die and thought your hair was an anchor.” Robin fretted. “As a doctor, it’s surprising how much magical thinking you engage in.”

“Compared to what I was raised with, feeling like my hair was an anchor was nothing.” I reminded them. “If I still believed all that, I’d have thought God brought me back here to watch my mother die, to hear her dying words, so I would be moved into returning to the fold.”

“You don’t believe that do you?”

“……no,” I confirmed.

“You hesitated,” Robin pointed out.

“No wrong way to grieve, remember.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Robin conceded. “You sure you’re ok?”

“Yes.” I assured her. “And I like the haircut.”

“Really?”

“Well no, you did a terrible job,” I laughed. “I’ll get it fixed when we get home. It’s good to be going home.”

“You’ve always called the planet you came from home?”

“I’ve realized it isn’t anymore.” I pressed my body into Robin, a person who wouldn’t have been allowed to exist on the planet I came from, and just enjoyed the feeling of zier arms around me. “Maybe you don’t need to be such a stranger when we get back…”

“That’s always been up to you,” Robin reminded me, then placed a gentle kiss on my shoulder. “We can still keep things open, even if we see a bit more of each other in-system.”

I nodded, it had been me who’d been afraid that being together more there would feel like it was leading to a marriage I’d be trapped in. Spending more time together didn’t have to mean getting married or anything, it was time to let go of that fear that kept me from feeling the comfort of Robin’s company in-system.

“I think I can handle that,” I said, as I closed my eyes, and began to stroke Robin’s hand.