Buzz

“I want you to shave my hair.”

I stared at Sammy, my face betraying the shock with her request. We were in the middle of our bi-weekly coffee catch-up session. We have known each other only for the past 6 months through mutual friends but this was bizarre even for her. And she is a strange lady. She is one of those few people who is able to focus on an interest and pursue it earnestly.

Just 2 months ago she decided to learn crochet and now her room is filled with an assortment of crochet pieces, some atrocious and others good enough to be sold. And before that she was interested in skateboarding. She asked some people at the local skatepark to teach her and now she can do basic tricks. Heck, she even had a phase where she thought of being a tattoo artist and even has a few wonky pieces she inked on herself.

Another reason her request was odd is because she has never once accepted my offers to style her hair, despite me being a hairdresser. She had gorgeous long black wavy hair which she took care of as if it was her baby. She was very diligent about using the right products, the right cloth, the right tools. She even cuts her own split ends. When I tried asking her about it once, she told me that it reminds her of how her mother used to take care of her hair before she passed away due to bowel cancer.

“You never let me do anything with your hair, so why the sudden request?” I asked in disbelief. “Are you sure about this? We can try a shorter hair length first. You may be shocked by the sudden change!”

“Well I think it’s time for a transformation and yes I am more than a 100% sure about this. Trust me I have thought about this for a while now and I would really appreciate if you didn’t try to change my mind about this. If you’re done, shall we head over to your place? I want to shave my hair off today.”

A bit stunned to make any comment, I nodded and we packed up our things to head back to my flat. I was still worried that she would regret this. People can place a lot of meaning in their hair. Once I saw a lady who was really excited to get a bob cut but after it was done, she was so upset that she started crying. A few days later she came back to get hair extensions. I would rather save Sammy from a similar fate. Then again, she is an adult and can make her own choices so who am I stop her?

We had quite the back and forth about this, but we eventually settled on a buzz cut and then a shave.

“I just worry that you’re going too far too fast and would end up regretting it.”

I conceded, on the condition that no matter what happened, the shave would be done if I said so.

Murr took a couple of minutes to grab what he needed, which included an old worn-out bedsheet and a crimson clipper covered in dust. As he wiped it down with a cloth, he asked me to grab a chair and set up a mirror to place in the living room.

Once I sat down, Murr was about to drape the bedsheet around my neck. I stopped him from doing so.

“Sammy, the hair is gonna be a pain in the ass to get rid of.”

“I know. I’m not going to be wearing these clothes again.”

I was a little sad about that. It was a latticed skirt and a blue cardigan my mother gave me some years back. I miss them already.

“Um, okay…”

So then the trimming began. All that was heard between us was Murr’s absent-minded humming and the low buzz of the clipper, its sound reverberating in waves as he got rid of everything one stroke at a time. Unlike most other things in my life, this had an air of finality. Like it was going to be this way– maybe not forever, but for a really long time—a length of time that actually mattered.

With each stroke my head felt lighter, the damp air stuck to my scalp. I reached up to feel every individual bristle. It was quite relaxing; I felt like a house cat being petted.

“Okay, and we… are… done!”

I looked at my face in awe, mostly because there wasn’t much else to look at, “It’s… I mean, wow. It’s something else.”

Mom would have hated how it looked. It would remind her of the people who go to the woods and feed off berries. Gosh, if I had done this when I was taking care of her, she may have passed even sooner.

“You look good,” Murr said with a satisfied grin. “Are you sure you want to go ahead with the rest?”

If I had looked after her more, maybe she’d still be alive to see this. She’d yell at me, and I’d be ecstatic. Because she’d be there.

“Well…”

Normally, like most things I try, I would have stopped. It would have ended up as one of my many partial pursuits. But I was so, so tired, and angry, and tired of being angry at myself. And I knew that I wasn’t exactly doing much here, but in my head at least, the point wasn’t to accomplish anything in particular. The point was to start over. To peek into a version of myself that keeps going. That sees things through.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.”