Split Ends
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by Elliot Scheuer
My hair has split at the ends, so I know I am old now. I first heard the term split ends when I was six. I took note of my mother’s complaints that she had split ends and needed to go for a haircut. When she returned from the hairdresser, seemingly unchanged, I was left with the impression that split ends were a metaphor used by middle aged women to describe discontent with their bodies. Perhaps that's too precocious a thought for a six year old. Maybe I was just upset that my mom didn't return from the hairdresser with a buzz cut or purple hair. A month ago I asked my friend what “split ends” really meant and she replied that just as the name suggests, the tips of your hair split apart forming snake tongues that slither together in embarrassing knots of age. For something so small to split felt implausible to me until I rubbed the ends of my choppy hair between my grimy fingers and came across the gossamer forks in my hair. A miracle of nature, on par with the ubiquity of the golden ratio and the hollowness of bird bones that give way to flight. I was absolutely mesmerized. I tried splitting the dainty hairs further, how far could I go before the pieces broke in two? The man I fucked 11 days and four cities ago said my my hair is perfect and my curls are enviable. He said that before he got close enough to see the monstrosity of microscopic splits lying within. We met while looking at images of mutilated bodies and burnt off skin in a museum exhibit about the horrors of the Vietnam war found on a list of Top Ten Things to do in Ho Chi Minh City as a Solo Traveler. Our eyes darted around the room. The pictures on the wall grew closer. Severed limbs splayed out around us, and faces, barely recognizable as human, glared penetratingly at us. "You know, humans have an uncanny knack for seeing faces, even when there's nothing there. It’s called pareidolia." At first, it irked me that he pronounced pareidolia incorrectly, placing emphasis on the latter half of the word (pair - ih - duh - LIE - ya), but then I found it enchanting that he even knew the word at all. I smiled at him and pretended like this fact was new to me and I let him talk about his soon to be social psychology PhD program. When we couldn't tolerate the guilt of American war crimes any longer, we stepped out into the oppressive humidity. Exhausted from 28 continuous hours of no sleep, I breathed in the sounds of this new city. The relentless rumble of motorbikes felt abrasive on the back of my throat and all I wanted to do was sleep. We agreed to meet for dinner at 6, and it felt nice to have the reassurance of company. When he shoved his dick in me, at 8 PM, after dinner which he chivalrously paid for, pain ricocheted up my spine. I felt myself tearing to pieces: In a story I’m writing there is a girl who is giving birth. She compares her pain to being run over by a stampede of goats. She lives in ancient Mesopotamia thousands of years ago and ultimately dies from lack of postnatal care. In the country I call home, thousands of miles away, a man is run over by a truck driven by a terrorist. This happens right outside my former high school. I am lying in a cheap hotel bed staining the white sheets with blood dripping from my body. He does not know I am bleeding yet, and with each thrust, I clench the bed sheets a little tighter and squeeze my eyes like I’m trying to get the last drop of juice from a week old lemon. He calls me a slut and asks me to call myself that too. How could I refuse his politeness? Or maybe it's his awkwardness, the greasy blonde hair matted to his forehead and the cilantro leaf still stuck between his teeth. I oblige. I am a slut. I am a whore. I am a dirty little slut. Fuck me harder. Eyes closed. Inhale. Feel the pain. When he kissed me by the riverfront, I should've seen it coming. I should’ve seen it coming when he grabbed my arm to stop me from entering oncoming traffic and let his hand linger a bit too long. But I didn’t. Instead, after dinner I bought us purple ice cream from a man with a bell on his cart. We stood, our backs to the river, facing the impenetrable traffic, sickly confections dripping down our wrists when he pretended to wipe away a smudge from the corner of my lips then leaned in to bring his mouth to mine. Perhaps he saw my split ends and breathed a sigh of relief, a true sign of my maturity. The snake tongues probably slithered through his ear and whispered that it was okay that I was 18 and he was 26—that I came to dinner with a notebook for recording the details of this ever fascinating city, and him with a box of condoms. I want to whisper through the darkness, it's okay, for most of my life adults have called me mature for my age. I like big words and traveling on my own. I can handle it. My body moves with the bed, the creaking noises too loud, too obvious. All of it is too much, but there's no way to stop. My limbs have gone slack. Yes, yes, I'm a slut, fuck me harder. Fuck me until I bleed on this mattress and abandon you in this cheap hotel room to clean up the mess. Elliot Scheuer is a writer based in New England. |