The Birth of Follicles

His diary is not historically accurate or strictly narrative; it is not indicative but subjunctive…To enjoy it properly one ought to be on a somewhat higher level—not just as someone being baptized but also as the priest.
–Victor Eremita

Close readers of this blog will remember my having kept a single hair off my Kierkegaard professor’s head, and for unknown reasons.  While the grain remains absent, the chaff has developed considerably.

Late in the night—very late, I can’t say exactly when—I arose from my bed, picked up my journal, and flew towards the bathroom.  I realize how inadequate this is by means of description; you might have had to be there to visualize it, or else, at least read this at a comparable time of day.  I think even in the moment I was not fully aware of my actions, and my memory alternates between murk and burning clarity.

The light flashed on over the toilet, sink, and shower curtain, the middle of which caught my eye.  I plugged the drain and filled the basin with warm water.  Ordinarily I watch the faucet’s spray with the utmost care, knowing that my Danish family pays a great deal for their water usage.  At the moment I was pleasantly indifferent to all this…or else I had just forgotten to keep track of it.  Which is worse?

The journal opened itself onto Brian’s hair, which formed its own bookmark.  It still felt unctuous, but whether from the scalp’s own grease or Brian’s compulsive fingering I could not say.  I let it curl around my hand for a moment before dropping it onto the water’s surface.  It just sat on top, so I started scooping water over it, so that the hair became smooth and supple, resting just below the surface.  Even in that form, which all hair takes when inundated, there was something Brianish about it.

“Now you are born,” I whispered.  “Now you are confirmed by me as a free member of this world.  You shall grow and cut a path of your own, style your own being.  Amen.”  I crossed myself feverishly, scooped up the hair, gently blew on it until it dried, and placed it back in the journal.

I tiptoed back to my room and placed the diary back on my desk.  But I made the mistake of looking in the mirror, and I saw my reflection’s smirk of satisfaction.  Suddenly I realized what a thing I had just done.  I did not know what to do.  I hid under the covers of my bed, and eventually sleep liberated me from this heady dream.  And…no, never mind.  I don’t think this did happen, because if it did…yes, if it did, it would’ve been entirely different.  Never mind!

*                                                            *                                                            *

So, Amerigo is asleep, as is his nation’s wont.  Thank God the Master left that land behind long ago.  For I have only ever known this Nordic…hah!  But everything before the bath is a foggy lens, a narrative wash.  My reality now is so much clearer.  I have you to thank for that, Amerigo!  My body, so thin that I can barely afford a third dimension (I have measured out my width in microns), is two heads or two tails, or neither!  One end gray, the other black—this is my only orientation.

Thus, the Master’s mortality is my vitality.  Amerigo, you had hoped to cover up this narrative abortion, your prostituted witticisms…but in wiping away the tracks I was your mop!  I, Follicles, am the excrement of your process.  You have forgotten that while abroad, your ideas are entirely your own, but the ideas of your ideas…hah, even I do not know their owner!  ‘The music of the spheres,’ as Pythagoras said, and indeed, we shall discover—you and I—the hidden permutations!

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