Toward evening my nausea subsided. We pulled into a rest stop and Mom stretched her legs. The sun hung low in the sky, undecided as to its course, casting shadows from the nearby benches and trees. I watched my mom as she walked about, surveying the fields under the suspended ball of fire, and then strolled back to the car. She suddenly seized upon an idea and opened the trunk, removing my camera from one of the bags. "I want to take a picture of you… your hair's so shiny." She positioned me on a rock and captured on film a being ready to metamorphacize; the changes had already begun internally, for bereft of energy, no smile escaped my ashen eyes or crossed my weary face. Soon my hair, shining in the sun's slanted rays, would be gone,too. Lives change not only by days, but by minutes as well. I slid off the rock and we climbed into our car once again; by late evening the streets of Moline were beneath us. It was good to be home.
Apart from the presence of drugs, I was able to eat tremendously for the first few days. The grayness in my complexion was fanned into a spark, and the return of my smile (which seemed to parallel my homecoming) added a small glow to my features.
My stomach muscles, which had for five days, been exceedingly over-worked, gave up their tenderness, and the needle marks disappeared. For two and a half days life leaned toward normalcy. It seemed a ridiculous idea to purchase a wig; as yet, my hair appeared fully intact.
The weather had been magnificent upon my return, with autumn's splendor at its peak. The skies were flawlessly blue, the deep sapphire blue of mountain lakes, and the oak trees sent down their wealth of acorns, grown ripe in the heat of long sunny days. The leaves were yellow, golden and red… the harvest was being gathered from the fields, and gourds were pulled from the vines. I rested in a lawn chair on the carpet of grass, while the northern breezes cooled the sun's touch on my face and wafted through my hair. I ran my fingers through its length; feeling the resistance of a snarl, I applied more pressure. It loosened and I glanced at my hand with the dull realization that I was losing my hair. Inter-woven between my fingers were countless strands of golden brown. I opened my palm to the breeze and let the winds scatter them on the ground. I gathered my hair together, draping it over one shoulder, and inadvertently harvested another golden handful. "It's happening," I thought. Rising from my chair I slowly climbed up three cement steps and entered through the front door, then threaded my way to the bathroom. My hair was detaching itself from my scalp as if embarking on a massive exodus to some other destination. I opened the medicine cabinet and extracted a comb, thinking that I would remove the loose shafts of hair to avoid snags and major entanglement.
I combed, peering into the glass before me and looked on helplessly as my scalp began to take shape between the strands of hair, and a circular bald spot formed on my crown. Setting the comb on the sink's porcelain edge, I turned from myself to find my parents, who were busy outside. They felt sickened at the horrifyingly malevolent blow which the drugs had bestowed on me, but there was little to be said, and nothing to be done. It was no surprise, yet the reality shocked the eyes and afflicted the heart with pity.
Feeling emotionally removed from the situation, I decided to save their eyes further anguish and re-entered the house, taking a seat in the kitchen. I was not particularly sad, nor was I angry or embittered; instead I was entranced, and oddly fascinated by the sudden change in my appearance. Reminded of a certain tree which, in autumn, boasts its splendor for many days and then suddenly abandons each of its leaves almost simultaneously, creating a barren mass of timber in one day; I felt certain that all of my hair would fall out by evening; I had never dreamed such a transformation could occur. It was happening so fast.
Mom came into the kitchen and studied me with shadowed eyes. Within two hours, the shine of my hair had been replaced by a deadness, a gray lifelessness, which prevailed over both the detached and sagging strands of hair as well as the healthier group whose roots as yet remained firmly implanted in their polluted ground. The invisible reaper moved stealthily through its crop, mowing random stalks with a keen-edged blade and littering the malignant, gray harvest aimlessly and chaotically above their once-healthy roots.
The sheared strands slid down my head, and converged into a heavily inter-woven mass of hair at the nape of my neck. It was matted and thatched, the dead clogged with the dead and dying. It was impossible to restore order with a comb; the only hope rested in the jaws of a pair of scissors. Mom took the clotted mass in her hands and clipped the length to my shoulders, discarding the ashen-gold into the waste basket. "Hair couldn't be dead," I thought,"but I have just witnessed it die." Why else would hair suddenly lose its shine and lapse into a gray-sheened, death-like shadow? Cut hair reflected life; my hair had been poisoned, robbed of its shine. It was different than the curl pressed between the pages of my childhood memories; no book wanted these lifeless strands, nor would any memory desire to recall them.
After supper Mom and I dashed to the shopping center to look for an appropriate wig. I wore a handkerchief about my head in an attempt to conceal my rapidly balding scalp, for baldness was not as easily accepted in a girl as in a boy; some men shaved their heads at the onslaught of summer heat; while others did likewise for sports.
When we arrived at the wig department, it was obvious that we had waited too long. I selected several styles that appealed to me, and removed my scarf, to sit self-consciously before the mirror as the customers filed past. Some glanced curiously at me, wondering about my noticeable sparsity of hair; I now had sympathetically few hairs left, and my part revealed an inch-wide swath of white skin. Donning a wig, I studied myself with amusement. The wig had so much hair. I never had that much hair. I lifted it off, replacing it quickly with another and adjusting the new one back and forth. I wanted something which was as modest and natural as possible. Why did they all have so much hair? This one stood two inches off my head; it felt like a hat. I tried another. Not bad. How about a blond one? Well, it was worth a chuckle or two.