A haircut is the closest thing to a fresh start Beatrix can imagine. Cut it, let it grow, start anew. She feels at a deficit. Lacking. There is no man in her life? Of course there are men; too many men. No, this a story about what B does with the hair the stylist cuts from her head. She puts it in her mouth. She packs her cheeks with her split ends until her mouth is dry and she gags a little, until her tongue feels like Bigfoot—legendary yet awkward. She's never done something like this, but all the way home she feels a comfort brought by the nest in her mouth.

That night, B spits the wad of hair into her bathroom sink. It's a black, thorny patch, matted and damp, a blotch against the white porcelain. She watches it for some time before going to bed. She pictures the trail of her spit as it leaks from the clump and down the drain. She sleeps well.

The next morning, B wakes to screeching coming from the bathroom. Like birds-of-paradise, she thinks, though she's never heard a bird-of-paradise, and the more she thinks about it, isn't that a plant? In the bathroom, standing on the lip of the tub, there is a beautiful bird the colors of ripening mangoes. It's three feet tall with plumage that curls down below its twiggish legs. It appears iridescent against the white tile. What do you do in these moments of miracle, when the world opens at its hidden hinges? B tries to hold the bird. It shrieks and flies into the hall behind her. It rips the curtains with its talons. It shits on the furniture. It makes a fucking mess.

B opens the door. The bird that grew from her hair, was once a part of her, flies out into an apricot sky, and she feels a sadness in herself. A different sadness from before and maybe that's the only change she can hope for. It isn't that this part of her is leaving, but that she knows this world is dangerous for beautiful things.

.

Ian Anderson has stories in or coming from Okay Donkey, X-R-A-Y, Five : 2 : One and others. He lives in Baltimore.

Read his postcard.

W i g l e a f               02-27-20                                [home]