At once, both the most natural and unnatural thing in the world, hair is like a devil’s tongue. It belongs to us, is part of us, yet so easily detached and changed into something abject. As I watch my locks clog the shower drain for the fourth time this week, I recoil at the touch of my wet strands of hair. Mixed with remnants of old soap, flakes of skin, and who knows what kind of slime lurking in the belly of the shower. How quickly it becomes a source of unrest. Finding loose hairs on my sweater or on the rug disturbs me. It makes me feel like a lizard shedding its skin. When not part of me, it makes me alien too.
I started to think about hair when one morning I noticed a single hair stuck on my bedroom wall. I pinched the hair between my thumb and forefinger and pulled. As I tried to remove it, it seemed to be rooted inside the wall. It resisted my pull firmly at first but came free with a sickening rip. As days went by, I began noticing hair in strange places. A strand of hair woven into the pages of the paperback I was reading, another coiled around the fork I grabbed from the kitchen drawers, and one long dark hair draped across my pillow like a snake. Each encounter sent shivers down my spine. Its subtle presence turned the air in the room foul, made it seem heavier, as though the walls themselves were holding their breath, waiting. Something was very wrong, I could feel it, like an itch underneath the skin that’s impossible to scratch.
At times it would feel like my hair has a will of its own. Moves as it wishes. Grows in untidy patches upon my feet and forehead, working its way up my legs and belly where it keeps appearing, an unwelcome guest. The pink wallpaper in my room began to resemble skin as I stared at it in horror one day. It bulged as though something was moving underneath it, tearing the wallpaper in places. Slowly, strands of hair began to grow out of the cracks in the wall. Spilling out like dark threads. Stumbling back in horror, I watched hair sprouting from every inch of the wall. The wallpaper a distant remnant of comfort which I tore apart only to uncover more unruly hair, growing like weeds.
I gagged and turned for the door but felt a lock of hair wrap itself around my ankle. As it tightened its hold, I felt strands of hair wound themselves around my waist, neck, and arms, holding me in place. My eyes started to water as the hair kept tightening its embrace. I felt my body being pulled towards the wall that seemed alive. The tickle of hair everywhere was unbearable as it gradually ensnared me into the warmth of the wall. It entered my nose, eyes, mouth, and ears. It began to fill my body until my veins were clogged with thick hair. My blood conspiring with clots of hair. Its ends reaching everywhere. I couldn’t breathe anymore and only spilled out black plucks of hair. It poured out of my mouth in deep, dark waves. It clogged my pores and blanketed my eyes until I could no longer feel its tickle. Until I was swallowed, consumed into nothing but a mass of hair – a devil’s tongue.