The hairdresser has no face of her own.
You will see a face, when you go in. Everyone knows what hairdressers look like, after all. You will probably see a ‘her’, though it might be a ‘him’, if you live somewhere where men outnumber women in the profession; I use ‘her’ by the convention of biologists, in reference to an asexually reproducing species. She will invite you in, and she will sit you down, and she will cut your hair. And she will make conversation.
She will ask, “How are you?” or “What are you up to today?” or “Where did you get that lovely bag?”, as her tools card through your hair. And you will tell her.
There’s something in every haircut; people are always feeling something. But the truly valuable cuts are the dramatic ones, when a girl breaks up with her boyfriend or a woman decides to change her life or a man decides that a fancy car is too expensive for a midlife crisis and the wait for a tattoo is too long. And they walk in and declare, “Cut it all off!”
And the hairdresser asks them, “How are you?” And they tell her. About the cheating husband, the dead pet, the wedding they’re attending next week, the need for the cut to join the military, the new name and new suits instead of dresses and new masculine hair to match. They speak of joy and grief and wonder and stress and anger and peace, and the hairdresser combs their feelings through the hair, into the hair, and then cuts it off.
Between customers, she collects the fruits of her harvest. Hair neatly swept up, taken into the back room. Chair empty and inviting, waiting for the next person to come in and speak of themselves and leave with a bit less hair and a bit less something else; lighter, in multiple ways.
The hairdresser is picky about her harvests. The strongest and most successful ones always are. She goes through the hair after closing, strand by strand, looking for the best. Hair that is too short is discarded. Hair that is too damaged is discarded. Most importantly, hair that isn’t vibrant enough – not with colour, but with feelings and dreams and life and personhood – is discarded. It gathers in bags in the back room while the best hair goes onto the spindle. The spun hair goes onto the loom.
She is weaving a cloak.
It’s a good cloak, well-woven. It’s not a complicated one. It is all being woven as one item, so no sleeves, no curves in the fabric; just one simple piece to be gathered around the shoulders. There is a hood of vivid reds and golds, shoulders of browns all the way down to the lower back, and then black, down to the ankles. At the very bottom, she has just started on the inch-thick white hem.
The white thread is heavy with experience. The grief of new widows and the terminally ill, the peace and joy of a customer who has just met their first great-grandchild. It is heavy enough to weight the bottom of the cloak down, to help it hang and swish pleasantly on the body. The hairdresser cannot wait.
In one inch’s time, the hairdresser will pull the cloak free from the loom. She will wrap humanity around her shoulders, pull humanity up to hood her head, and it will be part of her; she will walk out of the salon with a face, and a history, and a life stolen piece by piece in tiny clips and trims from a thousand clients. She will walk out of the salon and into a carefully built real life.
And the bags of hair left behind, those collected and discarded for their lack of material or emotional strength, will be left in her wake. Without the will of a hairdresser in the salon, they will strive to fill the space, half-dreaming new, young, fragile hairdressers into existence to seek identities of their own. Perhaps they will fight each other for the salon, leaving only the strongest to inherit her mother’s resources; perhaps they will cooperate, and run the salon together. Perhaps some will stay and some will split off to make new salons in new places, harvest new emotions in new neighbourhoods. There will be someone there, in the morning, after the ex-haidresser has left.
Someone to open the door, and smile with no face of her own, and ask “How are you today?” as she starts to comb your hair.
