The hair was pinned between my thumb and forefinger. It hung down all dead and white. Dead the way hairs get the second they leave your skull. It waved a little in the ambient motions of the room’s air; with the exhales of the three mouths, and the apprehensive wind dancing around the intricate awnings. It waved as the silver wind chimes on the neighbour’s verandah rung out like big crystalline glasses of varying fullness.
Nobody was saying anything, not yet. I just held the shoulder length white hair in front of me frowning, mouth open a bit in that ubiquitous expression of confused stupidity. It held the midday sun in its empty follicles. It cut the room like a knife. It cut the room like a beam of light. It cut the room like a bunch of stuff could literally or metaphorically cut something, let’s say. My bags sat slumped near the door to our room at the front of the house. We, being me and my boyfriend Jacob, had walked in through the hall and to the living room where I’d found it.
Dom had opened his bedroom door when he’d heard us enter. He was now leaning on the doorframe with one leg looped behind the other, twisting a strawberry blonde curl with both hands.
“Do you know whose it is?” he asked, with affected intrigue.
I decided it must be the neighbour’s. It did look like the hair of an old lady. My best friend Rachel’s hair looked sort of like this, but why would she be here while I was away? The neighbour on the other hand seemed suspect, after everything she’d been saying to the agency. It didn’t seem impossible she had a key, or had come through while I was away. Her large, grey, remodelled Queenslander loomed over our tiny yellow one like a fortress.
The next day, I stood stooped over my old MacBook as the morning light bounded through the french doors that opened to the front verandah. Beams hit the deep turmeric paint on the wood panelled walls, turning swatches bright gold.
“Are you ready?” Jacob asked. He shook his keys rhythmically with one hand, the other at his mouth as he bit his nails.
“Yeah one sec,” I said. My pixelated shadow followed along in the Photo Booth window, a few seconds behind. The full light illuminating the halo of stray hairs around my head, the texture of my skin, sunken tear troughs, fading freckles. He walked off and returned sipping a cup of percolator coffee loudly.
“Good to go?” He asked, raising his eyebrows. The way he always held his coffee to his mouth: his large roman nose half descending into the cup, big blue eyes widened with the undertaking. The twitch of my lower eyelid stayed captured on the screen for a second longer as I turned the laptop around to face the street. I bent over the desk to check the recording was capturing the front door.
“Skyla?” He said.
“Yeah just like,” I made a small, constricted noise at the back of my throat, “hang on, just hang on one second, okay? I’m just…” I stood up and turned to face him, “so we can see if someone comes in again,” I finished.
(...)
Nobody was saying anything, not yet. I just held the shoulder length white hair in front of me frowning, mouth open a bit in that ubiquitous expression of confused stupidity. It held the midday sun in its empty follicles. It cut the room like a knife. It cut the room like a beam of light. It cut the room like a bunch of stuff could literally or metaphorically cut something, let’s say. My bags sat slumped near the door to our room at the front of the house. We, being me and my boyfriend Jacob, had walked in through the hall and to the living room where I’d found it.
Dom had opened his bedroom door when he’d heard us enter. He was now leaning on the doorframe with one leg looped behind the other, twisting a strawberry blonde curl with both hands.
“Do you know whose it is?” he asked, with affected intrigue.
I decided it must be the neighbour’s. It did look like the hair of an old lady. My best friend Rachel’s hair looked sort of like this, but why would she be here while I was away? The neighbour on the other hand seemed suspect, after everything she’d been saying to the agency. It didn’t seem impossible she had a key, or had come through while I was away. Her large, grey, remodelled Queenslander loomed over our tiny yellow one like a fortress.
The next day, I stood stooped over my old MacBook as the morning light bounded through the french doors that opened to the front verandah. Beams hit the deep turmeric paint on the wood panelled walls, turning swatches bright gold.
“Are you ready?” Jacob asked. He shook his keys rhythmically with one hand, the other at his mouth as he bit his nails.
“Yeah one sec,” I said. My pixelated shadow followed along in the Photo Booth window, a few seconds behind. The full light illuminating the halo of stray hairs around my head, the texture of my skin, sunken tear troughs, fading freckles. He walked off and returned sipping a cup of percolator coffee loudly.
“Good to go?” He asked, raising his eyebrows. The way he always held his coffee to his mouth: his large roman nose half descending into the cup, big blue eyes widened with the undertaking. The twitch of my lower eyelid stayed captured on the screen for a second longer as I turned the laptop around to face the street. I bent over the desk to check the recording was capturing the front door.
“Skyla?” He said.
“Yeah just like,” I made a small, constricted noise at the back of my throat, “hang on, just hang on one second, okay? I’m just…” I stood up and turned to face him, “so we can see if someone comes in again,” I finished.
(...)