Hangovers and Computer Access

A Story by MacKenzie

Sarah Winters hates her haircut.

She draws a comb from her bureau and applies it roughly to the strange new angles. One, two, three firm strokes; then it slips and sails diagonal to the floor, with a resounding clank and bleeped expletive on contact. Frustrated at the sight of percents and asterisks sparking off the hardwood, saline boils in her ducts. Bad haircuts just take so much out of her. Even when the results are good, she's still been forced to stare at herself for too long in those gratuitous salon mirrors, realizing certain hard truths about her face. It looks like a pillow, and sadly an eggbeater as well. Blink, and it's ostensibly normal again, which provides a little relief, but she's already seen what's really going on after a good half hour, and there's no use pretending: The human head is a map of Jersey, from space.

It's not about the length.

She begins a flowchart of pros and cons, twisting the yellow fluff from nape to crown, ends poking out of her bony ad hoc Scrunchie.

It is layered funny. And I must now accept life as an English pageboy.

Defeated, and a little bored, Sarah studies the geometry her arms teach when clasped overhead.

A rough diamond shape. Hey! A diamond in the rough. Shape. Ew.

With more than a lick of brusqueness, she frees her grip. Pale waves fall into closely chopped strata about their base, leaving her collarbones below to mourn for their departed drapes. Ah yes, just the latest victims on an open-ended witch hunt, no visible end in sight. She'd thrown out lots of his papers, but nothing had shifted physically, so her hair was fingered next, and off it came.

A last look of surrender in the tinged vanity and Sarah is crossing the room to her window, peering down two stories at the frosted yard. A chill emanating from the glass makes her long for food or smoke, those corrupt muters of moderate pain. She spots a small cluster of mushrooms growing at the foot of an oak, competing for looks with yellow finches hopping in a birdbath nearby. Their hyper forms bounce and jerk like Claymation on crack, displaying near-odious pizzazz. Sarah tries to hear her father say something like, Please observe the birds, Sarah, but he loses fast, and her eyes slip back to the council of knobs.

As expected they are motionless, with black spots, and she considers their status. Barely alive on a scale of human to rock, the last rung of vitality---that is, if you're conservative on the viral debate.

Kudos, she thinks, fumbling for a smoke.