Tjutjuna - "Mosquito Hawk"

I shaved this morning, it was cold and the water was clear and it felt as if I had tidied up, the way you forget what mess felt like. I sipped grapefruit tea and dipped bread in yogurt, stretched into socks and clothes, and felt the fall air in my eyes. By the time I had rounded Hampstead, my beard had already started to grow. I tried to avoid the sun, put my back to the cultivating wind, tried to hide it from children and animals (innocent gaze) but nothing was working, my beard was in a mood. It grew in wild lines off my chin and cheeks and slid down my chest. By the time I got on the 37c express, my beard was at my knees, and I already had to hold it down to breathe. By lunch time, as I threaded my hands carefully through the thick pelt to get down a sandwich, it had filled the cafeteria. I thought it best to get outside after lunch, it appeared this was not giving up. My beard grew to the size of a city park. Kites, dogwalkers, soccer practice, casual joggers, the odd cyclist. All stuck, somewhere in the labyrinthine hirsuteness. I lay beneath the locks, hidden of course in many layers of beard, and hoped for an answer to come. Razor rain, cut wind, an electrolysis storm. I began to think of all the things I thought I would be, thought I would do, before these sorts of days became all too common. I wanted to work with minds, I wanted to help people express themselves, drama therapy, music therapy, that's what I wanted. But lying cold without a jacket beneath four feet of beard, praying for something that could dissolve this disaster, it was all so far away now. You can't attend classes with a beard that would cover the overhead notes. Nor could you live with an older grad-student roommate with a kick-ass DVD collection when your beard was a buzz-harshing fire hazard. And you certainly couldn't treat innocent patients, help them paint out their issues or sing out their troubles, when they would literally have to machete their way into your office. No, none of that would happen now, best just to lie here, for eventually park maintenance would come for the final time before the winter, and at least they would find the body. [Buy]