Over a Haircut

Kid, now a Young Man, walks into a barber shop. It’s not just any old barber shop — or rather, it’s just not any of the new fancy swanky hi-funda men’s/unisex saloons (as they’re known). No sirjee, this is Ye Olde Haircutter, an establishment that has been around in Kid’s childhood neighbourhood for as little as Kid can remember.

He hasn’t been here in five years. On his way there, he notices that the new fancy men’s saloon that had opened across from Ye Haircutter five years ago (Ploom Groom) had now been upgraded to an even more alluring unisex place (Plooms and Permz). He’d been to Ploom Groom once. They had young, cocky, inexperienced staff (one of whom nicked Kid’s ear, causing him to panic about infectious diseases) and charged twice what he was used to paying at Ye Haircutter. This time, unisex or not, he eshwed this shiny temptation.

Pushing open the ancient dilapidated door of Ye Olde Haircutter, Kid wonders if they place is still run by the gay-looking barber and (presumably) his brother. As a kid, he used to wonder why they had three barber chairs, when there were only the two of them to attend to customers. Inside, he isn’t surprised to see one of the three chairs empty, while the gay-looking barber is shaving somebody and (presumably) his brother is massaging somebody else’s head.

There is also another person, an Old Man, waiting for his turn.

Kid (mildly disappointed): “Will it take time?”

Gay-looking Barber: “A little, have a seat.”

Old Man glowers at Kid for a moment as Kid sits down next to him. Old Man returns to watching Cricket on Telly.

A few minutes of silence-shave-pound-silence later, and GlB is done shaving somebody.

Old Man: Hey kid, you wanna go ahead?

Kid: No sir, you were here first…

Old Man: It’s all right, I just want a shave. I’ll watch Cricket a little longer…

Kid: Okay, sure…

Kid thinks, Oh my… how horrible of me! I’m the impatient uncouth youth of the world. I’m just as bad as those fancy saloons I avoided going to, just as in need of instant gratification as the wasteful children who support and frequent those places. Look at that Old Man. He’s in no hurry. He must have been coming to this barber shop for years, every day or every other day to get a shave. But is it just the shave? No! He’s here for the experience, for the chance to sit and soak in the snip-snip-snips and black-not-brown bickering of the clientele. He scornfully gives way to speed-freaks as if to say “Haha! I’m not going to help you out when you crash and burn, son!” Great. Here I am, with a desire to try and become good at observing the world turn and run, but I can’t even patiently wait for a haircut, and take in the charm of this quaint, run down old place, with all its stories and memories…

———-

*10 minutes earlier*

———-

…and GlB is done shaving somebody.

Old Man thinks, Oh no… that damn faggot wants to shave me now. No.Fucking.Way.

Old Man: Hey kid, you wanna go ahead?

.

.

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to exist or not, that is often a question

…to borrow form from dead poets or not, is sometimes not even a consideration.

Alex was slowly beginning to realize that much about existence was optional.

First, I think he grappled with the question of whether existence itself was optional. Realising that his parents had indeed not consulted him before his mother gave birth to him, he concluded that he was created regardless of whether he wanted to be created.

Was he then like a liberated slave, who did not know what it meant to be free? What would he do now with his freedom? Hmm…, he thought. So if creation is not optional, what about destruction, and the bits between?

Destruction, or death, demise, finito, he opined was clearly constructible. It could be done. A bullet to the head oughtta do it. Even a fall off the Eiffel Tower. Alex was French. He watched too many American Sitcoms.

Constructibility, or ‘free will’, as it were, Alex felt, needed motive. Can I go from one random act to another?, he asked. Rob a liquor store one day, preach the bible another? He then asked, Can I commit an arbitrary act of suicide?

It seemed highly improbable to Alex that unconstruction could be voluntarily random. No, it would need to be motivated by something.

With this thought Alex went to sleep, bent on dreaming up the depressing, the dreary, the dark matter that drums about in the mind of the Suicidal.

(to be continued, hopefully)

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let’s see who comes up with the funniest line for the last frame! come on, people, get your amoebiotic fluids running!

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