The Hairpocalypse

“So did you see the news this morning?” my lovely daughter Hannah asked me around a bite of her dinner.

“No, what happened?” I asked as I poured myself a glass of wine.

“They’re saying that they think Zeta is finally eradicated,” she said with a neutral look that let me know there was more to this, bringing her long, caramel-colored hair over her shoulder and began stroking it lovingly, her hair normally fell just below the bottom of her butt, and as she pulled it over her shoulder it pooled in her lap in a massive pile of soft, living silk. She looked lovely tonight in a simple white shirt and tiny black leather shorts, “in fact, they think it could have been gone for as long as a month now.”

“That’s great!” I said, watching my beautiful daughter lovingly stroking her thick, shiny, caramel-colored hair, her beautiful natural golden highlights shimmering magnificently in the light of the setting sun. I was half tempted to do the same to my own thigh-length tresses, but I resisted, not wanting to further excite my cautious daughter, I wanted to hear where she was going with this, “it looks like in another few weeks or months we can start having a life again.”

“Yeah… I guess…” Hannah said, lovingly looking down at her gorgeous masses of thick, living silk piled up in her lap and delicately plucking at the ends, “but I mean, the news is saying it’s eradicated, why wait?”

I put down my fork and abandoned the preservation of her feelings for a moment so I could lean my head back and run my hands through my own thick, healthy, shimmering mane of thigh-length, light golden-brown locks, the sensation of my fingers running through that silken mass as electric and exciting as ever.

“Honey, we’ve been over this,” I said honestly as I continued to lovingly stroke my own masses of soft, silky locks, “we put a lot of time and effort into saving our hair, we just need to patient.”

 

It had begun as rumors… whispers… urban legends. A strange phenomenon in China of men and women apparently losing every last strand of hair on their head overnight without warning. Rumors turned to personal accounts, personal accounts turned to video evidence of it happening, and video evidence of it happening led to public confirmation of everyone with hair’s worst fears, it was real. By the time a cause was finally determined over 300 million Chinese people had lost their hair, 100 million of them women. So much long, black, thick silky hair had been lost, and it was only the beginning.

It was a virus… an exceptionally strange and relatively harmless virus, but a terrifying virus nonetheless. Dubbed the Human Antero-Follicle Intravenous Retrograde Virus (or HAIR virus for short), the virus was an extremely bizarre virus with an equally bizarre life-cycle. The virus infected the host, then began rapidly replicating and migrated towards the cranium, feeing on the nutrient rich proteins at the base of hair follicles for a source of food. The process takes about 10-14 days depending on the thickness and health of the host’s hair, and during this process, the virus is highly contagious, and can be spread via the air to infect new hosts. Worst of all, the host shows absolutely no symptoms with the exception of possibly a slightly elevated fever, but many people don’t even show that.

Once the virus is finished feeding on the base of the follicles and the hair bulb, absolutely nothing of the bulb remains, having been eaten away by the virus, however, the hair follicle concentration of viruses is so thick that it manages to keep the hair in place. This all changes after the virus has eaten away every last trace of all follicles at the top of the head, at which point the virus dies out in a matter of less than an hour. Once this occurs (almost always at night), the host’s hair falls out over a matter of minutes. They go to bed with a lush, thick head of healthy hair, but when they wake up it they find it all scattered around their head, not a single hair left. Ironically, the one visible symptom of the virus (complete baldness) signals that the virus has self-terminated, meaning that the host is completely clean and cannot spread the virus.

Once the source of the spreading baldness was revealed the world went apeshit. People in every country demanded that travel to and from China be shut down, but by then it was too late. People across the world had already begun losing their hair in droves, countless more infected, but still days or weeks away from being bald themselves.

As the first cases appeared in countries all over the world, the vast majority of women decided to grow out their hair. The logic seemed to be twofold:

1. Women seemed resigned to the fact that there was a very good chance that they would never again be able to experience the wonderful sensation that having long, beautiful, soft hair gave them, and if this was their last chance to do so, they wanted to enjoy it as much as possible.

2. If, for some reason, they were immune to the effects of the virus, having a head of long, thick hair would be a surefire way for men to appreciate them more.

My daughter Hannah and I fell into the latter group, and even though Hannah’s hair fell to her shoulder-blades and mine fell to my hips when the pandemic began, we both decided to grow it out even longer, as long as possible if there was a good chance we would lose it.

Each of us were blessed with thick, beautiful, long hair that my late husband always loved playing with before he passed. Hannah’s was a rich, vibrant light chestnut-brown with beautiful golden highlights mixed naturally through and spilling all the way to the bottom of her butt three years after deciding to grow it out, the color of warm, fresh caramel still in the pot, glistening beautifully in the sun which she had become so afraid of going out into due to her fear of losing all that beautiful hair.

As for me, my own hair was a beautiful and rich light golden-brown color, bordering on blond, accentuated by the first hints of occasional gray strands appearing through it. My hair fell to just below my knees in an impossible thick spill of heavy, glistening silk, softly moving beautifully around my body and enveloping me like a heavy blanket. I had always loved my hair, and the thought of losing it to the virus when it was first announced made me appreciate it even more as I grew it out, first to my hips, then to my butt, and now to below my knees, and god-willing, I would keep growing it until it passed my calves, maybe even to my ankles… if the virus didn’t get it first. But I held out hope, if my hair had survived the virus this long, there was a good chance we would make it all the way, especially with how the virus had already devastated much of the hair in the world once it had spread to other countries.

The virus had spread across the world like a wildfire, and there was no stopping it. Women who had once possessed thick, beautiful, soft hair that they had been working years to grow out and maintain were forced to wake up one morning to see it lying around them in their beds. Women who had spent years learning how to make their beautiful manes look perfect were forced to learn to live without those immaculate styles when it all fell out in a flash. It didn’t matter how healthy and soft your hair was, how beautiful it looked, how long it fell, or how thick it was, the virus didn’t leave a single follicle left on the top of a patient’s head once it was done, utterly merciless in its goal to claim every last silken strand on Earth.

Within a year the HAIR virus had claimed over 70% of the world’s hair, and those left who had been spared a chrome dome emerged from their houses with a positive outlook. With 70% of the hair in the world gone, the people who managed to retain their hair were seen as icons of a beauty that was quite literally fleeting. People tended to dote over them, especially people like Hannah and myself, whose hair was considered long and beautiful to begin with. Hair became the most sought-after fashion statement on Earth, “Hair Blessed” became the colloquial name for those who still had it, and we were treated akin to something like demi-gods by those around us. I can’t tell you how many times Hannah and I were stopped in the street by strangers, asking if they could feel our hair as a connection to a time that had passed the world by. It was a strange time, but understandable all the same… at least for a while.

Just when people who had kept their hair thought it was over, the virus mutated for the first time, and the Beta-variant was announced. This new variant was even more contagious than the novel variant, could travel long times in the air, and had a new trait that made it different from the original. Where the novel variant always caused the patient’s hair to fall out while they slept, the Beta variant could cause someone’s hair to fall out at any time of the day, taking someone from having thick, beautiful, healthy hair and reducing them to complete baldness and thought they had been spared the nightmare of losing their beloved hair (myself included) now faced a new nightmare: balding in public.

The Beta variant was a horrifying period for those left with hair, because it introduced a new element into the fray, visual representations of what was at risk. You would be out somewhere, enjoying your lunch, when suddenly you would hear an anguished cry and look up to see someone running out of the restaurant, their hair falling around them in clumps to the floor. One day, Hannah regaled me with a horror story she had just witnessed at her favorite restaurant when she had heard a loud cry of terror. She had turned her head to see a pretty young woman with beautiful long blond hair looking down at her hands, which were now filled with clumps of her thick blond hair.

As Hannah had watched, the young woman had dashed into the nearby bathroom as fast as she could, her beautiful long hair bouncing wildly behind her and leaving a noticeable trail of golden blond silk on the floor as she ran. A few minutes later, the young woman emerged, her eyes red from crying and her head completely bare and shining in the restaurant lights, the bulk of her hair, at least that which hadn’t fallen to the floor in her mad dash for privacy, lay in the bathroom trash.

Hannah hadn’t slept for almost a week after witnessing that living nightmare, her hands constantly buried deep into her hair and scared beyond words that they would come away holding clumps of her beautiful, thick, chestnut tresses in them.

Even television, the number one way for people to escape from reality, constantly became a window for people to see the disease affected their favorite stars. Cynthia Mason, an acclaimed news anchor famous for her thick, beautiful hair, did a special report where she bade a heartfelt farewell to her gorgeous and famous hair on the air. Dressed in a dapper leather blazer and white silk blouse, her hair perfectly styled and arranged around her, Cynthia explained on the air that her husband had lost his hair at dinner the night before, which meant she was almost certainly infected now and it was only a matter of time before her magnificent mane followed suit. As she spoke, clearly trying not to sob, her perfectly curled and coiffed hair gently and softly fell around her, delicately bouncing around her head, glistening beautifully in the bright studio lights, blissfully unaware of the horrible fate that awaited it.

Three days later, while giving a report on the state of the economy, Cynthia’s hair began to slide from her head. Cynthia gasped as a thick, shiny lock of her beautiful raven-colored hair slid over her eye, but ever the professional, Cynthia continued to report on the issue without even pausing as her hair continued to fall out in clumps, and by the time she was done speaking 90 seconds later, it was with a completely bare head.

Random patches of long hair littered the streets in every city, reminders of the virus dropped by those who had begun to lose their hair while going about their day. People with hair kept as far from those piles of hair as they could when they walked, which was ironic because any hair on the ground was a result of the virus self-terminating so it was actually the safest thing you could touch as someone with hair, but the sight of it was enough to terrify those of us left with hair. As time went on, the sight of those patches grew, and people still lucky enough to have hair found themselves hanging out more and more with people who didn’t, as the Beta strain was unable to infect anyone who had already lost their hair to the novel strain.

The sight of hair lying on the floor throughout cities like horrific casualties of war became commonplace. You would turn the corner and there would suddenly be a trail of long hair leading to an apartment building, a poor woman who had raced to her home trying to enjoy her last few moments with her hair out of the public eye. Or you would see a man walking down the streets with a bald head and a sad look on his face, his crisp dress shirt covered with short, bristly strands of hair that had moments ago been on his head. Whenever I saw sights like this my hand would immediately reach up to feel the re-assuring soft weight of my own thick, silky locks, the sensation of sliding my fingers through the lengths always lifting my spirits.

By the time the Beta strain was in full swing my hair had grown out to the middle of my thighs, more beautiful than it had ever been. But as much as the reassuring weight of my thick, soft, heavy hair was an oasis of relief for me and a method of relaxation, it was also a source of constant anxiety and nervousness. Every time I touched it, every time I brushed it, every time I reached up and smoothed the silken strands, I was terrified that my hand would come away holding clumps of my beloved soft golden-brown silky hair.

By the time the Beta strain passed it had destroyed another 50 percent of the remaining hair on Earth, taking the total baldness rate on the planet up to 85%. The remaining people with hair had dodged another bullet and went back to their lives… but now we were wary of a horrible knew realization. The virus could mutate at any time, and our hair would never be safe.

It was a year later and my hair had grown even more, now hanging just a few inches above my knees when the Gamma strain was announced. This strain was less contagious than the earlier strains and it faded from the news rather quickly… until Delta arrived a few months later… and then Epsilon… and then the dreaded Zeta. Zeta was the most contagious yet and by far the most devastating, with a 99% infection rate, and by the time it had swept through the world only 1.7% of the population was left with hair, Hannah and myself among them.

Everyday with our hair was a gift, so Hannah and I agreed that since we got it, we might as well flaunt it. We always styled and doted on our hair, and as a result we were treated like and stared at like unicorns whenever we left the house. It was both a nice and creepy feeling, knowing that we represented the rapidly vanishing population of people still left with hair, and most likely the only ones left with hair as long and beautiful as ours were. We took precautions to keep it that way, masks whenever we went out, sanitizer on hand at all times, and as much time in our house as humanly possible. As a result, we managed to keep our beautiful hair through the Phi strain, even though this strain was the most effective strain yet, and took the 1.7% of the population left with hair down to 0.16%. Out of the 8 billion people on Earth, less than 13 million were left with hair after Phi, and Hannah and I prayed that with so few people left in the world, the virus would finally die out.

For almost a year we dared to hope that it was over, and now with this tidbit of news that Hannah had just told me, I prayed that soon we would live in a world where a hair that we had fought so hard to save would no longer be in serious danger.

 

“Mom? MOM?!? ELLEN!” I heard my daughter say, snapping me out of my personal reflection of our time during the pandemic by using my real name, “you still with me?”

“I’m sorry honey, I was completely zoned out,” I said, tossing my long, silky hair behind my head and putting on a brave smile, “what were you saying?”

“I was saying…” she said, still running her fingers through her long, chestnut-brown locks, God it really was so beautiful, “that it looks like this thing is finally over! Isn’t that great?”

“It really is sweety,” I said with a smile, not wanting to betray that I knew she was up to something, “it really is.”

“So… I was thinking…” she said, her eyes dropping as she began to nervously put together what she was going to say, oh geez here it comes, “some of my friends want to take me out to dinner tomorrow to celebrate that I managed to keep my hair again, and I thought…”

“No,” I said firmly, “absolutely not.”

“But MOOOOOM!” she immediately defaulted.

“Don’t ‘but mom’ me young lady,” I said quickly, nipping this in the bud and shutting down the argument before it could even begin, “do you WANT to lose that hair of yours? You’re practically a legend at this point! A mythical creature, one of the last people in the world with hair, especially hair as gorgeous as YOURS is!”

I stood up and made my way behind my daughter as I spoke to her, picking up her mounds of thick, caramel-colored silken locks and letting them slide softly through my fingers, my god it was so soft!

“I mean, LOOK at this!” I said as I lifted another mass of thick, silken hair and let it fall softly back into place, “why would you ever want to risk something so beautiful that you fought so hard for?”

“Because it’s MY hair to risk mom!” Hannah shot back, turning her head to face me and pulling her hair from my hands, “and it’s MY life to live! I’m done living in fear of this thing! Besides, my hair still isn’t as nice as yours, so why should you care?”

“And that’s another thing!” I said, raising my pointer finger in front of my face, “you can say it’s your hair all you want, but if you come back into this house carrying the virus, we both know my hair is as good as gone too! And unlike you, I have zero intention of risking anything happening to all of THIS!”

I lifted my thigh-length hair and held it to either side of my head for emphasis, slowly letting it fall from my hands and softly spill back into place perfectly and beautifully for emphasis. My hair slid slowly from my hands, the wonderful sensation of soft silk sliding over my bare skin was always a delight in these times, and my thick, heavy hair fell back into place without a single strand out of place. It was simply wonderful, even with the random strands of gray beginning to make their presence known throughout.

“That’s not fair!” Hannah said angrily, her own thick, shiny hair fluttering as she pounded her fist on the table, “why should I have to suffer because you are obsessed with your own hair?”

“Because 19 years old or not, you STILL live under my roof,” I said resoundingly, crossing my arms over my chest to let her know I was done, “this argument is over.”

“Mom, come on,” Hannah said dejectedly.

“I said OVER!” I repeated, then sat back down to my dinner.

Hannah sat there dejectedly for a moment, then haughtily picked up her plate and glass and made her way past me towards her room. She turned her head so dramatically that her impossibly long, thick hair whipped me across the face, the softness of her hair becoming an inadvertent silky weapon.

“So unfair,” I heard her grumble under her breath as she passed, and I turned to watch her leave, admiring the way her thick, heavy, glistening blanket of golden-brown hair swayed so beautifully behind her, hair I had hopefully just saved.

I sat back in my chair and sighed, my appetite gone, so I picked up my plate and washed it, then retired to my bedroom to change into some comfortable pajamas. Before I slipped out of my clothes though I caught sight of myself in the mirror, and made my way over to it to take a look at myself. As I turned my head this way and that, looking at myself from different angles, I smiled a wan smile at myself. I wasn’t as young as I used to be… my breasts weren’t as perky as they used to be… and my midsection as solid as it used to be… but as my long hair spilled around me, so long and thick that it even covered my nearby reading chair, I couldn’t deny one thing; I made 44 look GOOD.

Not many women in the throes of middle age could still pull off “effortlessly glamorous” the way I could, and a lot of that was due to the almost distracting beauty and length of my hair. Dressed casually in a white tank top and a pair of skintight but well-worn and comfortable faded jeans, with almost no makeup on, I still had “it”, especially for my age, and had often been mistaken for Hannah’s older (albeit MUCH older) sister on several occasions.

But my smile faded slowly as I slipped out of my jeans and tank top and slipped into my favorite pair of flannel pants and one of my deceased husband’s oversized t-shirts. Maybe Hannah had a point, why bother being proud of my looks when I spent every single day indoors whenever there was even a whisper of a new strain. Was I being overly cautious? Maybe, but God… I just LOVED my hair so fucking MUCH! I couldn’t stand the idea of losing it all and becoming just another statistic.

“I’ll make it up to Hannah when this is over,” I said to my empty bedroom as I began to gather my hair for my silk sleep cap, but then decided against it and let it loose again just so I could enjoy the feeling of all that living silk pressed against my body tonight, “I promise.”

I picked up my book, and made my way to the living room, my mind coming up with ways I could treat my daughter when this was all over… and we could once again show off our amazing hair to the world.

 

Hannah moped alone in her room for most of the day over my inhumanly cruel desire to not see both of our beautiful, long hair fall out around us. She came out three times all day, once to grab something for breakfast, once for lunch, and once to microwave something for dinner, ignoring the evening meal I made and being sure to punctuate her anger by slamming the door. Each appearance was accompanied by such dramatic stomping that her heavy hair bounced heavily behind her, creating a gust of wind that grazed my face and smelled delightfully strong of strawberries.

I was half torn between wanting to go up and make peace with her and wanting to go up to curse her out, but I decided giving her space was the best way to approach this. I had to remind myself that these were very strange times, and Hannah may not be accustomed to spending so much time indoors. She was young and achingly beautiful, of course this felt like hell to her, but hopefully tomorrow things would be different.

 

I woke up at 3 AM with a start, breathing heavily and my pulse pounding. I sat there for a moment before reaching up with a trembling hand and slowly removing the silk sleeping bonnet that protected my beautiful hair at night…

And sighed loudly as I felt my hair spill all around me, still attached to my head, unlike that horrible nightmare I had just had where it had fallen out as I gave a speech in front of a group of professional doctors, some of them former presidents for some reason. I had desperately tried to hold onto my soft, knee-length tresses as they had slid down around me in a gathering storm, the audience pointing and laughing cruelly as they did so, until the pile of hair had grown so immense and massive that I had sunk into it… suffocating…

“God, I need to get out of this headspace,” I said as I swung my legs over the edge of my bed and rolled out. I made my way towards the kitchen, past Hannah’s room, and made myself a snack, then began heading back to my room to try to get back to sleep. But as I passed Hannah’s room I stopped dead in my tracks, the silence in her room almost deafening in its implications, “no… she wouldn’t.”

Hannah was a breathtakingly beautiful young woman, and her incredible head of hair had made her one of the most sought after young women on literally the entire planet right now, but beautiful or not, Hannah snored like a sawmill. I pushed open her door, slowly, in case I was wrong, praying I was wrong. But I wasn’t. Hannah’s bed was completely empty, no sign of her, and I knew she had snuck out to go out with her friends for a late night of fun.

“Oh, hell no,” I said, shaking my head slowly as the rage set in, my impossibly long, thick hair softly swaying around me with the motion, “you better give your soul to Jesus young lady, because your ass belongs to me now.”

It was 5:30 in the morning and the soft rays of the rising sun were beginning to shine through the windows when the front door slowly opened. Hannah opened it so quietly and so slowly that I almost didn’t even notice it, even though I had been sitting in the chair next to the front door for nearly two hours, quiet rage simmering within me.

Hannah tiptoed into the house, doing a quick once-over of the living room to make sure I wasn’t up, but completely missing me sitting less than a foot to her side. After she looked around she made her way through the door, slowly letting is close behind her and walking past me towards her room, holding her favorite heeled black leather ankle boots in her hand.

“Have fun?” I said abruptly.

Hannah yelped and dropped her boots as she turned to face me, her long, thick hair surrounding her in a storm of silk as she did. She looked beautiful… absolutely beautiful, her makeup immaculately applied, her hair sleek and shiny and soft, wearing a white tank-top over a pair of figure-hugging shiny black leggings that showed off every curve of her lovely figure. I know she had been out with Steve, a long-time flame of hers who didn’t seem eager to reciprocate her feelings for some reason, but my sympathy for her predicament was nowhere to be found right now.

“Oh my God,” Hannah said, her hand going to her chest, “you scared the shit out of… oh no…”

“Oh no indeed!” I said standing up, “are you kidding me right now? Are you freaking KIDDING me?!?”

“Mom, it’s not like that!” Hannah said, holding her hands up defensively, “I just… I’m suffocating here! I haven’t seen…”

“Well don’t worry about it,” I said as I stood up and began making my way towards my bedroom to finally try to get back to sleep, slipping on a mask as I did, “I told you that you had to listen to me while you lived under my roof, and since you can’t seem to do one, you can find your way to underneath a new roof.”

“Mooooooooom, do you really need the mask?” Hannah asked as I stormed off, and I turned to face her, my eyes blazing so hard that she took a step backward.

“Yes Hannah! I DO!” I said bluntly, “unlike you apparently, I want to actually KEEP my hair! Despite the fact that my daughter just put it in SEVERE danger with her antics!”

“But mom, the pandemic passed! They say it’s over now!” she pleaded, but I just turned and stormed off, my say final.

“Well then YOU can take the chance with that one,” I said loudly, “I expect you out by the end of the month!”

I slammed the door and took off the mask, letting out a long breath. Maybe I had been a bit… overdramatic, as I had no intention of forcing her to move out, but after that little stunt I would let my normally-perfectly-behaved daughter sweat a little, try to figure out how screwed she would be without a place to call home. And in the meantime, maybe she would learn a hard lesson about listening to her mother.

 

For the next almost two weeks Hannah tried to make peace with me, bringing me breakfast and leaving it outside my door, trying to talk to me when she entered a room I was in, and cleaning everywhere in the house immaculately. But most importantly, I saw how sorry she was in her eyes. It was clear my lesson had gotten through to her, that her actions had not only been selfish by risking my hair as well as her own, but most importantly, dangerous. She had been out until the wee hours of the morning, without telling me where.

Despite her clear penance, I still kept up the angry act. I refused to talk to her for more than a few words at a time, would leave rooms when she entered, refused to look at her, and would always wear my face mask around her. If I wasn’t going to stand by my demand that she find a place of her own to call home (a bluff which she rightfully and quickly called) then I was still going to make it harder for her to live with someone whose feelings she had just demonstrated she didn’t care about. It was awkward, and I wanted to stop a week into the treatment, but I forced myself to continue to two weeks, at which point I promised I would lighten up.

Whenever I saw her my eyes would always flick upwards to her gorgeous caramel-colored hair, looking for a sign, a trace that her hair was going to fall out, but if there was one I didn’t see it. Her hair never looked any duller (a rumored symptom of its impending loss), and always shined and shimmered beautifully under even the softest lights. It didn’t appear any less soft (another rumored symptom), as it always looked silky and smooth and sleek and soft to the touch. It looked like Hannah had been right and I had been wrong, and that her little jaunt out had been a safe one.

I never in my life prayed so hard that my daughter knew better than I did.

 

My memory had never been what I called “great”. I always had trouble visualizing moments in my life that others would consider important, or events which many would consider life-changing. My wedding, Hannah’s birth, and a handful of others were clear exceptions to the rule, but for the most part, there weren’t a lot of things that were locked into my memory.

But one thing I will always remember is the horrible, desperate, heartbreaking wailing sound one morning that signaled the moment that the HAIR virus finally came into our lives.

The sound of my daughter’s wailing shriek reverberated through the entire household, making me shoot awake so quickly that my silk sleeping bonnet flew off my head, causing my long, thick, magnificent hair to fly around my in a glistening tsunami of golden silk before falling perfectly back into place around me.

“HANNAH?!?!?” I screamed in a panic, my hand automatically snatching up and putting on my mask unconsciously as I flew out of bed and raced to my daughter’s room, grabbing the gun from its hiding place as I did so in case someone had broken into her room. I made my way to her door and threw it open, beginning to raise the gun…

And stopped, my eyes going wide and my jaw dropping.

There sat my daughter in her bed, wearing her oversized pink silk sleepshirt. Her hair was lying practically everywhere, around her pillow, on the floor by her bed, covering her sleepshirt, covering her blankets, practically everywhere except her head, which was as bare as an egg. Forever gone were her rivers of rich, luscious, caramel rivers of purest silk which would spill down her back so beautifully. Forever gone were the thick, heavy ponytails tied by long satin ribbons that she loved so very much. Forever gone were the lovely and playful hairstyles I would see her put her hair into whenever she came down the stairs. All those wonderful moments were now lost, turned from promises into memories in the blink of an eye.

“Mom? Mama?” Hannah said between sobs, her breathing rapid and ragged and her eyes practically glowing red from crying, I made the slightest motion towards her and she shrieked and recoiled as far as she could, throwing her hands up in front of her as if fending off an attacker, “NO! Stay away from me! Please don’t come any closer mama! I don’t want to infect you!”

For a moment… for a horrible, terrible moment… I almost took her advice. A desperate, terrified part of my brain screamed at me to shut the door and run away, to pick up 50 gallons of Lysol and bleach and sterilize the entire house.

But with a sigh the thoughts passed out of my head as quickly as the appeared, the mother part of my brain taking over with a resounding and firm hold. My daughter was hurting, and hurting badly, and what she needed more than anything was her mother’s love.

No matter the cost.

“Oh baby,” I said as softly and reassuringly as I could as I reached up and pulled the mask from one ear and then the other, the mask momentarily getting caught in my thick jungle of living golden silk before coming free, and then I made my way towards her bed “come here.”

“NO MAMA NO!” Hanna cried out as I approached the bed, holding her hands outward as if I were some sort of predator approaching her rather than her mother, “GET AWAY FROM ME! IT’S NOT TOO LATE FOR YOU!”

“Shhhhhhh… shhhhhhh… shhhhhhhh…” I said as I sat myself on her bed and took her into my arms, she stiffened at first, trying to fight against it, “it’s OK, it’s OK.”

I felt her remain stiff, but only for a bit, then I felt her soften and then sink into the embrace, her sobs returning full force as I reached up and gently began stroking her strangely soft but rubbery bare scalp. After a few more good sobs I pulled back and kissed the top of her bare head before taking her in my arms again.

As I let my daughter continue weeping for almost a full thirty minutes I realized that my choice had been the right one. Even if I hadn’t decided to do the right thing and expose myself to the virus, I had been living in the same house with my infected daughter for the last two weeks, breathing the same infected air, touching the same infected surfaces, and with how insanely contagious this virus was, the chances that I hadn’t been infected before now were damn near impossible.

As my daughter’s sobs subsided and I felt her reach up and begin stroking my own thick, silky, soft, calf-length hair for reassurance, I accepted the hard-hitting fact that my beautiful hair, my pride and joy, my most beloved possession, the one thing that made me stand out in the world growing increasingly void of hair, was already as good as gone.

It was only a matter of time.

 

If Hannah had felt bad about sneaking out on the evening that had eventually cost her all of her hair, she felt downright horrible once she had lost is all and realized her actions had likely doomed mine as well. Once the initial shock of her hair falling out had passed, she had gone nearly catatonic with grief over the impending consequences of her recklessness, and the pending moment of my own beautiful hair following suit weighed heavily on her. I couldn’t stand the sight of my poor baby so distraught, and any and all animosity over her indiscretion passed in an instant as we made amends and grew close once again while we both cared for my hair in what we knew would be its final days.

The one silver lining of Hannah’s hair loss was the fact that Steve had finally reciprocated her feelings once she had finally gone bald, which helped Hannah get over her feelings of grief and guilt. At first I was confused, but then Hannah explained that Steve had told her candidly on their first date a few days later that the fact that with her gorgeous hair still on her head, Steve had thought he never had a chance with her because Hannah was quite literally one of the most sought after women in the world. Once her hair had vanished however, he felt like he finally might have a chance to be noticed by the gorgeous young woman, not having a clue that she had been harboring feelings for him for months. They were now dating and things seemed to be going wonderfully for them, and I was genuinely happy to see my daughter get over the loss of her hair so quickly… I just hoped in the following days that I would handle my own impending baldness as well as she did.

During that time, my daily routine became dedicated to nothing more than a mourning process for my beautiful, long hair. I found myself frequently feeling it, playing with it, lifting it around my head and marveling at the sheer weight of the incredible silken lengths before letting it fall softly back into place once again. My silk headwrap was a thing of the past, what was the point in long-term protection for hair that was about to disappear forever? So every morning I would wake up and lay there in silence for a moment to just take in the incredible sensation of all of my soft, shiny hair splayed around me in rivers of living silk, watching the soft sunlight of the rising sun make my sporadic gray hairs glimmer and glisten like strands of purest silver mixed in with the liquid gold of my beautiful mane. It was like a living funeral for my beloved tresses, my hands and my mind bidding my doomed hair a fond farewell and appreciating every last aspect of those beautiful lengths, despite the fact that for all appearances and purposes, it looked as thick, soft, silky, and beautiful as ever… but soon it would all be gone.

I became aware that I was becoming unreasonably devastated by the idea of my impending hair loss. Sure I loved my hair and would be crushed when I could no longer run my hands through those soft tresses, but if everyone else in the world was bald why should being one of them affect me so unreasonably? As I became more and more aware that my time with my beloved hair was rapidly running out, I realized that I had become fond of the looks I had received walking down the street, like some sort of mermaid or mythical creature that people had heard of, but never seen. I was basically a living legend, and when my hair was gone, that status (and praise) would disappear as suddenly as my silken, golden hair. Was this why Hannah was so more willing to go out? She wanted to fit in with the world again in a way that I had more or less forsaken in favor of holding onto my cherished mane? In that regard, I realized that I actually had a lot I could learn from my daughter.

The tension of waiting for all my beautiful, thick hair to fall out was incredible, unfathomable, and increasingly overwhelming. Everyday I awoke and was greeted by the sight of my beloved mane still attached to my head my love for it grew more and more, as well as my dread of the horrible day when it would all change. I despised this disease, it was an insult to know that it was going to so easily steal away something I loved and cherished so much, and there was nothing I could do. The virus had effectively stolen the fate of my hair away from me, and it hadn’t even happened yet! It felt like an insult, a slight, and I hated that my hair was no longer my own because of a microscopic virus. The tension grew worse and worse, before long becoming unbearable, until finally it was just too much, I HAD to take back the destiny of my hair for myself… and not for the virus.

Six days after Hannah had lost her hair I stood in my bathroom in a white athletic top and white yoga pants, my hair spilling around my in a golden waterfall of silk. I looked at myself for a long time… my reflection of my face obscured by soft, flowing, golden silk spilling around it and framing it beautifully. I loved this sight… and I always would… but one thing I couldn’t fathom anymore was the idea of something other than myself controlling the fate of my hair. Before the virus, there were plenty of viral stories of women with cancer shaving their heads before the chemo could take it from them as an FU to the cancer. In my own way, I felt I needed to do the same to give the virus the middle finger.

I took a deep breath, then reached down to pick up a pair of shining chrome clippers from the bathroom sink, holding the hungry blades up to my eyes.

I flipped them on, and let out a loud, surprised cry at the shockingly loud POP they made when they turned on, the buzzing sounds emitting from it sounding like a swarm of angry flying bugs descending on an animal carcass to devour it. But these wouldn’t be devouring a carcass… they would be devouring my beloved hair.

I let out a sigh and reached up with my left hand to pull my hair back at the front of my hairline… then placed the clippers at my forehead. I hesitated ever so briefly… then pushed the clippers up towards the front of my thick, golden mane which I had treasured for so long. The blades buzzed hungrily as they approached my hair, closer… closer… until they were just about to touch the front of my impossibly thick hairline. They paused there ever so briefly… and then with a deep breath, I plunged them into that silken hairline.