LIFE OF A HAIR

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 228, 27 September 1938, Page 19

LIFE OF A HAIR

1 Short Story

I OREW up among thousand* of others * like me, led upon my room and lived !:.'nihe P J oreßt made u p o£ ™y

1..■„» - •a" ° I rd,nar y hair - I «a s dark •« ... colour and had my. home , tho left-hand side just above mv inu-tie.»> temple. | f S ;;'"«t|«"« I curled up over the brim ;0 he bat sometimes I was hidden in t''« deep shadow of her cap; it all depided on the fashion of the moment. \l believe I was always a faithful, ■ ffwtionate hair. Kven during those ter,""H' nijrht* when my mistress tried to J l'»H »* out in her despair. I j„»t hung i»« to ray root with mijrht and main. ;'"'"l ilidn t let go, a* so nianv of the : weaker characters anions mv'relations

I «oon got. to know how *ly- and false ""'• ","'•. I liked them at flrst, I won't '"».v it; because it was for them that my metres* began to make herself I enntiful and take care of me. I wax washed in soapy foam, scented with sweet smelling perfume, curled up '»<'> a beautiful curl with iron*, and treated with electricity for hours.

Each woman's hair likes to have a lot of care taken of it. It repays by shining with gratitude and pride.

So, as I said—l used to like men— and they liked me, too. They used to stroke me till 1 crackled with well-being, and they pressed their warm lips to me, and ]trained and admired me.

But then Paul came. He was the first to find fault with me. He thought I was too tidy, too common. And my mistress allowed herself to be influenced by that young man's lack of taste.

I had to put up with a terrible treatment. I was tortured with evil-smelling acids, and when I felt well enough to look in the glass, I stood on end with horror: I was. black as ebony! • • • •

If only my. mistress had been happy, I should have submitted to "lay fate; hut in spite of her having sacrificed her lovely brown colour for Paul, he deserted her soon afterwards.

Hhe wept for nights on end. I tried to comfort her, lying as softly as possible among my brothers, never standing up alone. Once, in fact, I and some of my neighbours tried to curl ourselves!

Bit my mistrese didn't get happier till she met George. At first I was very grateful to him for making her forget Paul. But that affair came to an even worse end. She was so terribly miserable and cried so much that I, being a sympathetic hair, turned grey over night.

(To tell the truth, when I think back —now that my life is over—to that moat difficult of all my decisions, I realise that it was partly selfishness on my part, because going grey was the

By PETER FABRIZIUS

only way I could get rid of that beastly black dye.) J

But when my mistress caught sifht of me in the glass next morning, she gave a cry of horror and impulsively made as though to pull me out.

But then she saw that several of my brothers had acted in exactly the same manner, and she sat sadly in front of the mirror for a long time.

Then she suddenly sprang up and hurried off, and soon I had to go through that horrible, painful process again. When I naw myself once more, I hardly recognised myself. I had turned blonde*! * * * •

But this time it was a good colour, and looked almost natural. Then we were lucky. Eric fell in love with mv mistress and adored me. I had a kindlV feeling for him, too, at first, in spite of the unfortunate experience I had had of men. How could I <zues« that Eric would bring me death—and shame?

One day. as he was kissing me, and I was scenting the air out of happiness, he asked my mistress for a lock. And she, the ungrateful creature, laughingly

picked up the scissors and cut me off. Me! after I had served her with such sympathy and devotion— and some of my brothers, too!

Our lot wasn't too bad at first. We were wrapped up in. tissue paper and carried in a breast pocket. Eric always carried us about with him, and used to take us Out from time to time and look at us tenderlv.

Of course we got rather dry and brittle (I m'wwed my root terribly), but we were tied up with a lovely pale blue ribbon.

Fate had reserved one more piece of luck for me, for I returned to my mistress' house when Eric married her. From that time on things went from bad to wofse.

The jnan never looked at t» again, and one day when he was clearing out his pocket book he impatiently threw me in the waste paper basket, and my one-time mistrese emptied me into a pail in the kitchen with the rest of the rubbish.

There I used the last remnants of my strength to overcome the ribbon and tissue paper. I floated slowly out of the pail and fell into something warm and good-smelling, into which I sank as into a pleasant bath.

Once again it was Eric who fished me out, carried me to his lips. I thought he was going to kiss me as he had in the old days. Then he pulled a face of disgust and shouted: "A hair in the soup! How filthy!"

That's how the man who had once adored, stroked and kissed me and carried me against his heart, spoke of me!