MicroHorror

The hairdresser massaged Moira’s scalp as warm water ran over her head. Moira watched steam rise and play with swirls of spackle on the ceiling. Men, women and children with blank gazes and empty eyes stared back. They moved with the steam, lost souls in a rough sheetrock sky.

Moira flinched at a violent pull. She switched focus to feel the woman’s fingers, snagged in a tangle. A towel wrapped around her head wicked water and her mind felt unusually empty.

The hairdresser signaled she move to the stylist’s chair. Moira obeyed.

Scissor blades snapped together, danced over Moira’s head in a hypnotic blur. Within it, dirty pieces of her life played like a film. She glanced at the floor. Instead of a carpet of hair clippings a twisted mist of memories hovered. The hairdresser jerked Moira’s chin up and shot a fine mist of hairspray. It smelled odd: old and mold and oranges. The particles fell, then rose carried by invisible wind. They fell again and absorbed into Moira’s scalp.

Moira admired herself in the mirror. A familiar woman’s face stared from the ceiling.

“Like the new you?”

Moira smiled and handed the hairdresser a wad of cash.