#Shave

6:45PM PST, Jan 1, 2010

[ed, is a fantasy by Robert T. Jeschonek @TheFictioneer ]

7:00PM PST, Jan 1, 2010

The giant silver wedge roars closer, slicing down forests of follicles. Herds of howling mites stampede from its gleaming sharpness.

11:00AM PST, Jan 2, 2010

I shiver in the giant blade’s shadow as it razes my kingdom in a cloud of white foam, a roiling wave of split ends and stubble.

7:00PM PST, Jan 2, 2010

Help us! cry my subjects. Please save us! Can I, King Cowlick, do nothing to stop the slaughter of the hairistocracy of the headland?

3:00PM PST, Jan 3, 2010

Follicle brothers and sisters fall before me, slashed down screaming as the merciless blade plows closer, pushing a blistering wind.

7:00PM PST, Jan 3, 2010

I strain and flex and suddenly break loose! Roots snap and tear as I pop from my pore, becoming the first free-range hair in history.

2:00PM PST, Jan 4, 2010

Cilia sprout from my bottom and I find my footing. Rooted follicles around me wail as I skitter past, away from the onrushing blade.

10:00AM PST, Jan 5, 2010

I slip and fall! The monstrous blade roars toward my follicle, a juggernaut blotting out the sky...and then it swoops up and away.

2:00PM PST, Jan 5, 2010

I’m left staring at a pink wasteland stripped bald, gleaming and still. So this is what the world looks like without forests of hair.

10:00AM PST, Jan 6, 2010

Am I the last surviving follicle? I see no others in any direction, so I set out across the scalpscape, seeking more of my kind.

2:00PM PST, Jan 6, 2010

I cross the Straits of the Fontanelles and scale Mount Occipital. I see the country below is as barren of hair as that behind me.

10:00AM PST, Jan 7, 2010

I circle the world to the peaks of The Temples, and here I find hope. Far below, I glimpse terraces of pale follicles. I’m not alone!

2:00PM PST, Jan 7, 2010

My climb down the slope of the headland takes forever. I clamber from furrow to ridge, my wiry cilia scrambling on the oily surface.

10:00AM PST, Jan 8, 2010

My strand is weary when I reach the terrace, but my spirit is light. A forest of sandy brown follicles sways around me, my cousins.

2:00PM PST, Jan 8, 2010

Relieved, I nestle between downy fronds and sleep under the woven canopy overhead. The fronds murmur the name of this place: Brow.

11:00AM PST, Jan 9, 2010

My rest in Brow doesn’t last. At first, I think the screaming of the hair is in a dream. Then I wake to see giant pincers descending.

2:00PM PST, Jan 9, 2010

Clamping around the nearest frond, the pincers hoist it upward, yanking the skin of Brow with it. I tumble down the steepening bank.

3:00PM PST, Jan 10, 2010

With a wrenching roar, the pincers pluck out the follicle, leaving a vast crater. The giant silver jaws carry off the uprooted frond.

7:00PM PST, Jan 10, 2010

I scurry out of Brow, away from the pincers, then slide down a slope and up over a huge dome. Fellow follicles lash up and catch me.

2:00PM PST, Jan 11, 2010

The lashes carry me with them, held in their curling weave. I’m dizzy as they flick up, down, up, down, gliding like angels’ wings.

10:00AM PST, Jan 12, 2010

Shaken free by the moving lashes, I splash down into gellid whiteness. A sticky film holds me fast. Could this be fabled Eye-Land?

2:00PM PST, Jan 12, 2010

Liquid runs over the white film of Eye-Land, pooling around me. When I squirm, it pours faster, submerging my stranded follicle.

10:00AM PST, Jan 13, 2010

A mammoth pink object looms over my strand in Eye-Land, a missile with a hard upper shell and a maze of swirling ridges underneath.

2:00PM PST, Jan 13, 2010

The missile descends, and I’m trapped. I scream as it catches me between its ridges and lifts me from Eye-Land’s flooded whiteness.

10:00AM PST, Jan 14, 2010

I ride through space, stuck to the missile’s ridges, and stop before huge, crimson gates. They part, and a strong wind issues forth.

2:00PM PST, Jan 14, 2010

The wind blasts me loose and sends me spinning through the air, a free-floating follicle with no link to the kingly life I once knew.

10:00AM PST, Jan 15, 2010

My prayers are answered! I shiver with joy as I flutter into a brown jungle of hair, so thick the air is filled with orbiting fluff.

2:00PM PST, Jan 15, 2010

I touch down in the densest forest I’ve ever known. Mites hop past, chirping gaily. Lice sing as they spring from strand to strand.

11:00AM PST, Jan 16, 2010

A whistling flea gallops by. I leap up and ride him bareback, surveying the new kingdom. Was I meant to rule this wild, furry heaven?

2:00PM PST, Jan 16, 2010

The native follicles whisper and wave as I pass. Who is this rootless wonder come down from the sky above? They bow to my greatness.

3:00PM PST, Jan 17, 2010

King Cowlick walks among you! I tell the awed strands. I will lead you into a new era! I will teach you to free yourselves as I have!

7:00PM PST, Jan 17, 2010

The follicles cheer as I promise mobility and adventure. We will start a glorious movement of free range hair that sweeps the world!

2:00PM PST, Jan 18, 2010

I have found my furry new kingdom, my fresh start. The vast jungle of follicles roars as one, proclaiming me king for now and always.

10:00AM PST, Jan 19, 2010

Just as my reign begins, the world suddenly lurches. I’m thrown from my flea steed as New Cowlickland pitches violently on its side.

2:00PM PST, Jan 19, 2010

What’s happening? Follicles shriek and wrap themselves around me. You are in terrible danger, King Cowlick! The Purge has come!

10:00AM PST, Jan 20, 2010

Something pink, rubbery, and enormous crashes through the jungle. Screaming strands call it Tung, come to purge the weak and damaged.

2:00PM PST, Jan 20, 2010

My subject strands howl as Tung scoops me from their grasp. It hauls me from my kingdom and reels me into an enormous, jagged maw.

10:00AM PST, Jan 21, 2010

Captured by Tung, I sink in pitch darkness through slime-coated tunnels, squeezed downward, ever downward by rippling, fleshy walls.

2:00PM PST, Jan 21, 2010

I spend ages floating in a dark sea of bubbling acid, waiting to die. My only hope is to cling to other follicles adrift in the sea.

10:00AM PST, Jan 22, 2010

The captive strands and I mesh, forming a raft. Holding tight in the dark, acid sea, we long for rescue from the worst hair day ever.

2:00PM PST, Jan 22, 2010

One day, we hair survivors escape. The acid sea churns, then heaves us back up the slimy tunnels and out the jagged maw to freedom.

11:00AM PST, Jan 23, 2010

Our hairball raft lands on a satiny white mound awash with morning light. The creature who spat us out here leaps away...and I grin.

7:00PM PST, Jan 24, 2010

Up ahead, I see the familiar scalpscape of Old Cowlickland, only the once-barren country is now studded with dark and rising stubble.

7:00PM PST, Jan 25, 2010

Weeping and laughing, I, King Cowlick, pry myself free from the hairball and rush toward the stubbly headlands, my kingdom regrown.