Jenna lay back on the couch and rolled her shoulders, knowing that soon, the room would get big and she would get small. She would shrink all the way down until she was one empty hair follicle, sizzling in mystery.
“Alright Jenna,” sighed Helen, her electrolysist, “I guess you’re ready.”
Helen handed Jenna eye-protectors and a cool metal rod wrapped in a wet sponge. Jenna closed her eyes, squeezed the sponge, and listened to the peaceful splashes of Ambient Ponds on the sound system. The pond seemed to trickle straight from the speakers and into her fist.
“Here we go,” Helen said.
The needle hummed. Jenna imagined a great bee circling a water lily. The bee landed softly on her nose and then sliced a hot, fiery tongue into her follicle. It cooked the skin, latched onto her root and then yanked it into the bright, merciless day.
“Jenna,” said Helen, clearing her throat, “I want to know about school. How’s high school?”
“Oh, it’s fascinating.”
“I bet.” The second pull was a sneak attack. There was a warmth and then a tug. “I’ve been doing well myself, actually.” Helen caught another hair, more quickly than the last. “I went to the Griffith Observatory. I took a hike.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“The views up there are incredible. I think it’s because of the shrubs. No tall trees over there, just shrubs.”
As Helen spoke, the pond grew hazy. Jenna’s images fell further away as her hairs broke thoughtlessly, like leaves snapping quietly from a tree.
Oh Helen, Jenna wanted to say. This isn’t it at all.
But Helen continued to talk, and Jenna had no choice but to follow along into the long, winding and shadeless tourist trap of a story.
“You can see the freeways from up there. You can’t hear them, of course, but you can see them all rushing like rivers.” Helen paused. Jenna had detected real emotion in her voice. “I guess, as I said, there were a lot of shrubs.”
“Well, I’m sure there was more to it,” Jenna urged.
“They bristled. They were all full of character – not that I’d necessarily recommend them.”
Jenna felt the bristles. She felt the thorns and, suddenly, a hot shovel twisting into the rocks. The gravel parted. The sagebrush popped.
“Nothing but clouds up there, big tufts of clouds,” Helen continued.
“That sounds beautiful.”
“It was.”
Rows of elderberry lined the trail, clinging to the dry ground. Helen shot them with sunshine. They glowed yellow and then orange, and then toppled over, revealing smooth pink bulbs at their base.
“Wow,” said Jenna.
In the silence, the pond swelled gently towards the hills. The bees, too, hovered and then glided between the reeds and towards the shrubs where they stuck themselves on splinters. Furious, they plunged their stingers in revenge, stabbing the thick, fleshy petals with electricity.
“I like to imagine it at night,” said Helen. “All the skyscrapers. All the roadways lit up like stars.”
The cars would ripple moonlight. They would race towards the horizon, night-glazed and sparkling.
“Hold on – a kitty-whisker.” Helen zapped a spot just below Jenna’s nostril. “There we go.” She had dug out the sun and liberated it from its cave.
“Oh,” said Jenna.
In reality, the sun was delicate, like the yolks of runny eggs.
Helen cleared her upper lip for free. This gave the women time to talk about picnics and the flowers that grew by the beach. They both loved beach days. They loved to throw themselves in the water, to soak in the salt, and to come up for breath, hair wild and dripping.
Olivia Koutsky is an English tutor from South Pasadena, California. She has been published in Paddler Press, and she has a B.A. in Literature/Writing from UC San Diego.
Image via Unsplash.