The Dreaded End/ I Am Not a Lemming {Forgive My Jabbering I Am Not Myself}

I walk into Charlie's. The 12 inches of a hair on my head sticking out in every direction. four sets of eyes follow me as I cross the linoleum floor and land in what is to be my hairs electric chair.
“Dead man walking...dead. Man. walking.” I can almost hear Percy Wetmore, that asshole, shout down the mile. (for those who don't know, thats a “Green Mile” reference. One of the best novel-movie masterpieces of all time)
I take a long look at myself in the wall length mirror. I'm shivering. And its not even cold. Get it together. I tell myself. Get it the fuck together.
After a second, Charlie himself walks up to me. He seems intrigued.
“What can I do you for?” he asks after a standard issue 'our long hair makes us brethren' greeting.
I swallow. Try my best to calm my nerves. It wouldn't make do for my voice to come out all funny. It would let him know that there was still a chance of talking me out of it.
Deep breath. Inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth.
“I want to cut off my hair. All of it.”
Charlie's eyes stray to the top of my head yet again. After a moment, they drop to look me square in the face.
“Are you sure?”
I nod.
“Yup. Let's do this.”
Charlie shakes his head.
“well, if you're sure...”
“I am.”
I hope I sound more confident than I feel, I think as I watch Charlie, in the mirror, tie a neck strip around my neck followed by one of those polyester oba nylon apron thingys they cover you with to keep your recently liberated hair from getting all over you.
Picking up the clipper, Charlie asks me how low I want it.
“Level one.” I tell him.
He sort of smiles. To me it looks more like a grimace.
“That's really low, you know.”
“Yeah, I know.” I assure him.
“Ok.” he says nodding. “Just as long as you know.”
He turns on the clipper. The Buzz-Buzzing it makes jolting me like 20,000 volts of electricity coursing through my body damning me to the grave..
I close my eyes.
“ten minutes,” I tell myself, “ten minutes and this will all be over.”
Yeah, the cynical part of me adds, with your hair all over the floor...




Deep breath. This is gonna take some getting used to. I keep touching my head to make sure it really happened. That I'm not just dreaming. Or somehow just imagined it.
“Yup, it really did happen.”, the thin carpet of hair left on my head proclaims every single time.
“Now I'm just like everybody else.” A part of me despairs silently, mourning its loss.
“I am not my hair.” I try to convince myself as I stand in front of the mirror. But nobody's listening. Not now. Not tonight. Try again in the morning.
“Now its back to charming them” , I sigh.
Before, the hair did half of the work for me. There's just something about a man with long hair that turns girls on. And girls, dont you dare try to deny it.
My game had upped because of it but to be quite honest, it had also suffered. I got lazy. Smiled, let them touch my hair, said something vaguely funny, told them I wanted to go home with them and then it was on. Now it wont be so simple. Or will it? I guess you'll have to ask me in a few days. The weekend is coming up after all...
There was a point I was trying to make. I'm sure of it. Um, lemme think...lemme see...
Nothing. I cant remember, for the life of me, what I wanted to tell you. Something about not wanting to be a lemming. About not wanting to be part of the everybody in “everybody else”. And as corny as it may seem, my hair helped me do that. Or at the very least I managed to fool myself into thinking that it did. I would walk down the street and eyes would follow me. Do you know how many stares I got today? Like really? A grand total of ZERO. Zilch. Not...a...one. and its not that I necessarily crave the attention, its just that being so used to something and then having it suddenly taken away from you is well, kind of a traumatic experience. Like losing a child.
Then why cut it off in the first place? You may ask. A very valid question. I just...I just felt it was time.
Then stop pining.
Well I intend to, thank you very much.
So is that it? Is there anything else you would like to share with me?
I cant really think of anything...
Then good night.
(Stern voice...there's no arguing with it)
*sigh* Good night...