Morning light shone through the artificial trees outside his window. The portable computer by his bed blinked into life, the screen glowed and tuvan throat singing was played. It was morning. Slowly waking, Gomez reached for the computer and looked at the screen for a moment or two, unsure of what to do, before linking it to the machine in his hand and turning the alarm off. His brow creased at the decision whether to lie in bed for a short while longer. What did he have to do? Checking the time on his palm he got up, pushing the crumpled duvet down with his feet. Taking a paracetamol, he went to the bathroom and urinated whilst looking at himself in the mirror. He needed a shave. Pinching his nose slightly, he got into the shower and stood, feeling vulnerable in his nudity before the steam began to flood the cubicle. It was programmed to release a mixture of vitamins in order to properly wake him and he began to come to, enjoying the start of his morning ritual. Gomez rubbed a razor across his face and washed as he played a quick game of chess on the wall of the cubicle. He got out and began to dry himself when he noticed a hair on the floor. A single long, black strand that had curled in on itself. Gomez had short, brown hair. He knelt and picked it up, examining it before flicking it towards the plug. After getting dressed and having a breakfast of tea and toast he left his house and got into his car, the computer starting up automatically once he fastened his seat-belt.
“Good morning Gomez. Where to today?”
“Work please.” mumbled Gomez.
“Thank you.” said the computer. He watched out of the front window as the car rolled down his drive and onto the street. Several icons hovered on the glass. He touched one and a small square of the window was taken up by a live news feed.
“Messages?”
Another box popped up, showing two unread messages. One was from his friend, Maxwell, about wanting to go to a night club called The Bath. The other was a video message from one of his work colleagues.
"Summarize." He said to the computer, which quickly analyzed the message. 'Work Harder'.
As he drove past a coffee shop the view of the street began to change so that the walls were lined with the coffee shop logo. A small subtitle appeared at the bottom of his wind-screen. 'Great Coffee, Great Times' flashed the message. Holograms of people enjoying the coffee were projected onto the pavement, a virtual live advertisement feature that encouraged potential customers to get involved into the lifestyle of the product. Small aerosols gently puffed out scents of coffee, well-worn oak, soft pillows and a chemical intended to make people remember having a good time. He wrinkled his nose slightly at the last scent, one of the bottles containing the concentrated mixture had once smashed close to him and scorched the inside of his nose. He had to spend the next few weeks applying a regenerative paste up each nostril and ever since then that particular smell had reminded him of having a bad time. He paid a credit to stop the advertisement so he could return to watching the news, the usual mix of social upheaval, environmental disaster, mayhem and amusing trivia played out. Gomez sighed, flicking through his friends updates that changed every few minutes. He signed into work and got a few bonus credits for arriving early. Gomez passed the security guard at the front gate.
“Nice tattoo.” said Gomez. “That real ink?”
The man laughed, gesturing at the dark blue curves that now covered his face. “Of course. I'm old school.” Gomez put his thumb up, a small scanner on the security guards uniform recognized the hand form and gave the guard a bonus credit. That morning alone he had accrued sixteen credits via thumbs. He'd be promoted soon enough. He brimmed with pride and gave Gomez a high five, giving them both some bonus credits. “Have a nice day sir.” beamed the guard as Gomez headed into the office.
The office was a largely empty room with one or two tables by the wall. The workspaces were marked out on the floor with a chrome indentation, each about the size of a standard house pod. Gomez nodded to one or two of his co-workers as he went along to his workspace. A scanner flicked across his eyes and as he entered his station a translucent wall began to form around him like ice.
“Good morning Gomez. Can I get you a drink?” said a computer.
“Sure. A white coffee, caffeinated.” he said into thin air as he scrolled through the job queue. It was all pretty usual, boring. And there seemed to be more and more every week. A robotic arm appeared through the holographic wall to pass him the recycled polystyrene cup. He took a small sip of the hot liquid whilst selecting a person at random to tell. “Start.”
The room around him began to load. Basic shapes at first, the colours changed from the light pastels into darker shades as things began to solidify.
“Harry Hanrahan?” said Gomez to the pale man that had materialized in the corner.
“Yes?” said Harry. Gomez looked at him, trying to gauge how far the apathy had built up. He showed all the classic symptoms. Bad hygiene, malnutrition, no affect in the voice. But most of all, his eyes were beginning to turn square. Overuse of holograms began to reform the rods and cones in the eyes, creating at first a honeycomb structure that gradually turned into oblongs. This in turn had an effect on the pupil, then the iris until finally the eye would protrude out of the head slightly as the whole eyeball would become extremely rigid and square. Blindness was quite common in the apathetics, although this didn't stop them from receiving data broadcasted onto their optical nerve. “What can I help you with today Harry?” said Gomez, trying to match the accent of a computer as closely as he could.
“Can't...I can't open the curtain.” said Gary, pointing towards the window.
“Would you like me to show you?” said Gomez, walking over to the curtain.
“I'm not sure. What do you think?” said Harry, beginning to slump forward. That was part of the problem in being a Teller. A lot of the time people didn't even know what they wanted to be told.
“Well, I think it might be a good idea. Let some light in. Maybe even open the window a bit.”
“If you think so...” said Gary.
“Okay. Harry. Watch me.” said Gomez. He mimed moving the curtain back. “Come on Harry. Come here and do what I do.” said Gomez. Harry nodded and shakily walk towards the curtain. The distance of each step was beginning to differ. Wouldn't be long until he would forget how to walk. Harry touched the curtain, it made him jump.
“Oh.” he said, surprised.
“Don't look up. I'm a Teller. Try and do.” said Gomez. But Harry was already looking up information about the curtain, the material it was made from, the history of curtains, what his friends thought of curtains. The muscles in his face relaxed completely. “Harry!”
“Oh...I'm sorry.” said Harry. Gomez acted pulling the curtain back and Harry did the same, albeit struggling with the weight of the thing. “It looks so easy in the films.” said Harry, arms shaking with the strain. Slowly enough though the curtain was pulled to one side and the city began trickling into the dark room. Enormous structures made from carbon nanotubes reached up into space. Hundreds of other house pods like Harry's were dotted on various buildings, some moving around, others stationary. Millions of people, a majority with their curtains closed.
“It's so real.” gasped Harry.
“Maybe you should think about opening a window. Smell things, hear things outside?”
“I don't know about that. I might miss my programmes.” said Gary, shuffling off to a chair. “I'll watch it for a while though.” he said, his face suddenly twisting into a smile. Gomez nodded and faded away back into his work space.
He carried on for several hours, telling people how to use a knife and fork or brush their teeth. Once in a while he would need to tag a person who seemed as though they needed medical attention, the catatonic and feeble population were picked up and taken to hospitals where they would undergo reality therapy. At lunch Gomez went to the canteen. Being a Teller involved doing a lot of things for yourself, each one was required to take a competency test every month. A lot of other cafes and restaurants would choose the food for you based on preference and dietary requirements, but Gomez and his colleagues had to choose from a menu. It encouraged decisiveness. Gomez sat at a table with a steaming bowl of black bean soup and a fruit roll when he was joined by Maxwell.
“How are the zombies today Gomez?”
“Not too bad. Had to tell a kid how to stroke a dog today.”
“I heard Mary went to tell someone to feed their cat, turned out it had been dead for a week.”
“Funny world.” said Gomez, spooning the soup into his mouth.
“Guess who applied for a flying car license the other day?” said Maxwell.
“Really? You want one of those?”
“Ah, safer than jetpacks. What's that?” said Maxwell, pointing at the soup.
“Black bean. It's alright. You eating?” said Gomez, having another spoonful of soup.
“In a bit. Going to try and have lunch with Ava.”
“Need a Teller?” said Gomez.
“Not just yet I think.” smiled Maxwell. He folded his arms, leaning back slightly. Gomez had another spoonful of soup and pulled a face when he swallowed. He pursed his lips and pulled a hair out of his mouth.
“Gah. What's this?” said Gomez, holding the hair up.
“A hair in your soup? Haven't heard of that in a while.” said Maxwell, looking over at the large food synthesizer. Gomez laid the hair down on the table and bit into his fruit roll.
Gomez spent another few hours helping people carry out relatively simple tasks. Between jobs he sometimes thought about the state the world was in. That a fully grown man couldn't use scissors. That nobody in an entire family knew what a bed was for. When he started out it had been more complicated but as time went on he was required to show people how to undertake simpler tasks. He expected in a few years nobody would know how to do anything, it was a global epidemic of ignorance. They couldn't comprehend the familiar. And though reality was beginning to become a chore for most, the virtual was growing at an exponential rate. He would sometimes think he had been born in the wrong decade, perhaps back in the nineties or noughties when cars still had manual controls and food wasn't printed.
Gomez met Maxwell outside The Bath later that night, flashing their hands at the bouncer.
“Seven credits in, that's a bit steep. This place isn't even meant to be cool yet.” said Maxwell.
“Ah. Forget about it.” said Gomez, taking a belt from a hook on the wall and fastening it around his waist. The contact lens in his eye lit up in the bottom corner, informing him he had paid another credit for the belt rental. He tapped on his hand to accept the terms and conditions before starting to swim in mid-air. The two men drank and danced and swam about and everythin seemed alright for a time.
Gomez was driven home quite drunk, he took a route that went around the hills of the city. Scenic. He was listening to The Second Beach Boys and had set the windscreen to constantly change the colour of the lights so that the road ahead of him glowed and pulsed in time with the music. Red, blue, purple streetlights flicked overhead like planets covered in psychedelic rivers of paint whilst the city below him seemed to be made from the embers of exotic gemstones. A notification appeared, he opened the video. It was an advert for a new film about a serial killer that targeted families. He was about to turn it off when he noticed a hair on the inside of his windscreen, clinging to the glass. Gomez frowned, reaching forward to brush it off the screen when the car suddenly lurched. Gomez looked around then leaned over towards his seatbelt when the screen lost power and showed the street ahead of him normally. Besides the engine, everything had stopped working, even the brakes. The car carried on, it's momentum building. It sped beneath the white street lights before hitting a wooden fence. The car barrelled through that and bolted into the night. Gomez began to panic. In the blackness he could make out the steep incline the car was roaring down, going faster and faster. The whole car began to bounce up and down as it's huge wheels bounded into tufts of grass and rocks wet with dew. It suddenly flipped onto it's side.
“Turn on! Turn on!” shouted Gomez, his voice cracking as he slid around on the seat. There was a loud bang as the roof of the car smashed into a stone wall. Airbags immediately inflated around him, faster than the car had chance to crumple. He was quiet for a moment, then vomited. A car crash! Gomez hadn't heard of that happening for decades. He remembered reading that people used to get injured in them but as far as he could tell there wasn't a scratch on him. He began deflating the bags and pushing the door open above him. Gomez started walking back up towards the road. He tried to turn his computer on but realized it had been broken in the crash.
“Bogus.” he said.
The next morning he woke, slightly groggy and mouth dry. It had taken him ages to get back home last night, his feet were raw and covered with blisters. Gomez reported the crash to his insurance company and whilst eating breakfast he found another hair. This time a whole clump of them, wrapped around and around each other, inside the yolk of his egg.
“What the hell.” he said, holding the hair up closer to his face to inspect it. Long black hair. He hadn't seen hair like that for years and in the last twenty four hours he'd seen it in his car, his food, his shower. Where was it from? He would go into the city to get it analysed. He didn't have anything better to do on his day off anyway, it would be a good reminder about public transport.
The train sped along. In his pocket he had a ball of tissue paper containing the eggy hair, he'd take it to one of the gene sequencing labs in the city to see who it belonged to. He didn't visit the centre often, though not many people did. Most had been turned into some sort of housing, legal and illegal. Skyscrapers filled with pods blotted out the sky whilst closer to the ground the empty shopping malls and multi-storey car parks were home to hundreds of squatters. Governments had thrown hundreds of millions of credits into regenerating the city centres to try and attract people but nobody had cared. Half-completed façades of super buildings had been left for the best part of a decade, building materials lay unused and scattered around like toys. Piles of broken bricks were here and there, lit up holographically with promises that the new city centre was 'coming soon'. The great apathy of the 21st century. Even as a Teller, Gomez couldn't remember the last time he had ventured into the city during the day time to actually do anything. He walked through the doors of a modest lattice-framed building, it's exterior a net resembling the strands of DNA.
“I'd like this sample sequencing please.” he said, walking up to the person at the desk. Their cybernetic implants were so intrusive he couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman. He handed over the thing in his pocket.
“Is this the tissue sample?”
“No, it's some hair. I want to know whose it is.” said Gomez.
The cyborg sighed, taking the sample from off the brilliant white desk.
“Come back in an hour.”
“What am I meant to do in the city for an hour?”
The cyborg shrugged and pressed a few buttons. Gomez squeezed the bridge of his nose before heading back out.
Gomez walked around the inner plaza, looking around in puzzlement. The Baroque inspired architecture had been mostly torn down and the whole plaza was in the process of becoming refitted with walls of black stone. A few people walked around the huge courtyard, having to walk half a mile to find clusters of shops still open. Gomez looked around a little market. Boxes of books were scattered around, pages and covers bent under the weight of the other books randomly thrown together. A lot of country folk still liked reading paper books, but Gomez wasn't sure if he'd even held one. He thought about getting a few for his parents but got distracted by another small box of dvds. At the front of yellowing plastic boxes was a copy of Dog Chaser, one of Leonardo DiCaprio's last films. He looked down at his hand and tapped one of his fingers. Words appeared on his contacts, telling him the plot synopsis of the film and it's pop cultural significance. He ignored the compilation videos, suggestions and comments and looked at the date he'd first watched the film. Gomez slid the dvd case out and looked at it with a small smile. The old man behind the counter nodded.
“Good choice man. Have you seen it?”
“Yeah, me and my wife saw it at the cinema.” said Gomez, putting the film back.
“Any five for a cred.” said the shop keeper, turning back to his book.
Gomez walked on through the arcade, built in a time when it was thought thousands of people would use the shopping centre. Now it was occupied by just a few families living in the empty shops. Bare MDF panels had been nailed onto the crumbling walls beneath, reflecting what little light there was back onto the main walkway. A few more people were laying on their backs, totally engrossed in the virtual cloud with eyes square and glazed over Gomez wondered if they were still alive. A lot of the electric lights had been turned off in this area, Gomez was about to turn back around when he heard a strange grunting in the darkness. He tilted his head slightly, trying to hear where it was coming from. It was emanating from a corner just a few feet ahead. Gomez walked slowly across the plastic floor towards the source of the noise. He peeked his head around the corner of the wall and saw a couple having sex against a bench. They glanced at him momentarily before carrying on. Gomez walked away quickly, he could feel his face turning red. At least they had round eyes.
Back into the light. A warm breeze blew down a chimney, throwing up plastic bags and dead leaves into miniature cyclones. Gomez spat. The columns and archways were now decorated in some Aztec pastiche, spirals made from right angles adorned the edge of every wall. Finely polished marble slabs were illuminated with simple two dimensional holograms, the animations of people shopping played out in short repetitions. There was an error on one of the holowalls, the entire thing just flicked black and white. As he walked past, the strobing animation made him wince. He should have probably taken another paracetamol, the drinks from the night before were still working through his system. Gomez tapped his hand a few times then looked back up. A red line had appeared on the floor in front him. He began walking along, reading a few updates as he exited the shopping centre. Gomez crossed a road and across thick grass towards a doctor machine.
He entered the small box and the glass darkened around him. The Dr. M logo glowed, lighting up the red cross behind it. Gomez held up his hand and the machine scanned it.
“Thank you Gomez. What is the nature of your pain?”
“Not sure really. Possibly psychological, maybe it's a new disease or something.”
“Please breathe into the tube.”
A short plastic tube emerged from the small console in front of him. Gomez leaned forward and blew into the pipe. There was a quiet whirr as the straw began to retract into the machine. On the screen in front of him his results popped up. He was relatively healthy for his age then made several suggestions about what kinds of food and media should be taken in in order for him to be at his best. Otherwise there was nothing wrong with him. Gomez shrugged and got out of the box then set a new course for the gene sequencing laboratory.
“These can't be right. Are you sure?” said Gomez.
“Yes, we have ninety nine percent accuracy.”
“But this woman has been dead for a year.”
“Either way, that hair belongs to her.”
“It's impossible.” said Gomez looking at the printout he had in his hand.
“Are you okay?” said the cyborg, leaning forward.
"Not really." muttered Gomez, pushing the paper into his pocket and walking back across the plaza towards the train station. His face had began to relax as he began to think about what it meant. Leanne. Why was her hair appearing? He reached back into his pocket to check the printout again. When he unfolded it a dozen or so hairs clung to the page momentarily before being blown away by the wind.
Row upon row of luxury apartments flicked past quicker than the eye could keep up with. Gomez rubbed his nose, unsure of what to do, so was still for a while before miming a phone with his hand and holding the fingers up to his face.
“Maxwell.”
The phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Hi, how are you?” said Gomez.
“Alright. Feeling pretty good actually, had breakfast with a beautiful woman.” said Maxwell.
“Good, good.” said Gomez, licking his top lip and looking back out of the window. “Did I take anything last night? Have I been taking anything whilst I've been at work and forgotten?”
“Uh...don't think so. Why, are you freaking out a bit?”
“I don't know, I saw a Dr. M and it said I was fine.”
“So what's the problem? You'll be hungover, take a tablet already.”
“No, I got in a car crash you see.” said Gomez. There was a pause, so he continued. “It was...some hair. This human hair keeps following me around.”
“Are you okay mate? Did you say you'd been in a car crash?” said Maxwell, concerned.
“Yeah” said Gomez. His mouth opened, about to continue speaking when he noticed another hair on the leg of his trousers. He reached down to pick it up.
“Gomez?”
As he delicately plucked the single, long strand of hair on his thigh he noticed more hair at his feet.
“There's some hair here.” said Gomez, reaching down to pick up the multiple loose strands of hair. They uncurled and dragged across the floor as he pulled up at the central mass. He set it on the table in front of him.
“I'm sending you a photo of it.” said Gomez. He made the shape of a square with both his hands and made a clicking sound with his mouth. Maxwell was quiet.
“It's...it's a bunch of hair. What have you been doing? You don't sound well.”
“I had some analysed. It's Leanne's.” said Gomez, his voice flat. The web of hair lay on the tabletop. His dead wife's hair, an enigma. A shape of dread.
He locked the door behind him and ascended the staircase, looking at the door to the attic overhead. He went into the spare room, the walls that had been painted a light blue were obscured by piles of cardboard boxes holding various paperwork, old clothes, a bicycle with cobwebs between the spokes rested against an antique television. He picked up a long wooden stick and walked back into the landing, lifting the attic door upward. With a little hook he pulled down the aluminium ladders, they slid down violently, mechanically. There was a damp smell coming from up there. For a moment he was unsure whether or not to go up, pausing before he put his hand on the cold metal rung. He told himself off for being so stupid. It was his house, not some haunted mansion. Gomez began climbing. Once he had reached the top he pushed himself up into the loft and sat for a moment, dangling his legs down. He looked around, trying to let his contacts get used to the light. They had a certain amount of image correction but not too much. He rarely went up here, dead moths and flies rested on a thick carpet of dust like strange vegetation in some far off tundra. All around him was gloom, the shapes of boxes could barely be made out against the velvety blackness. It gave the illusion the room was a lot bigger than it actually was. Gomez coughed then started crawling along the floor to where he thought the boxes of her things was. He could just make out the corners of a box and started dragging it towards the light coming from the landing below, but he saw the writing on the side. It read 'baby clothes', so he pushed it back. He was in the right area. After a few minutes of looking around he found the right box and brought it downstairs.
He took it into his bedroom and set it down on the duvet. He looked at it, then left the room. He came back a moment later with a glass in one hand and a bottle of Japanese whiskey in the other. He took a drink then put both down on the bedside cabinet. He looked at the box again for a while, 'leanne' written on the side in black marker. Gomez pulled off the brown parcel tape and opened the lid. Stones from beaches, tickets to shows, small holograms they had of their wedding. He took out each thing and placed it on his bed, trying to make some sense of it. An answer. At the very bottom of the box was a framed photograph. He hadn't seen it for a while. They both were smiling, posing outside a restaurant when they first started going out. He smiled back at her, stroking the image of her face with his thumb. “I miss you.” he said quietly. Gomez moved the photo away from the rest of the stuff and put it out on top of his set of drawers. The computerized voice made him jump.
“Maxwell is at the door Gomez.”
“I'll be down in a moment.” said Gomez, rubbing his eye.
They sat across the kitchen table from each other, it was awkwardly quiet.
“Can I get you a drink?” said Gomez.
“Um...no. I'm okay. How are you doing?”
“Not too bad. Sorry about that phonecall...I don't know.” said Gomez. “I'm going to have a whiskey. Sure you don't want one?”
“No, honestly.” said Maxwell, pursing his lips. “Look, I'm sorry about last night, I wasn't thinking. With Ava and everything, I don't know. I should have been more thoughtful.”
“Oh, it's not that. No, you should go for it.”
“What is it then? Car crashes, hair?”
Gomez took a sip of whiskey, changed his mind, and finished the glass. “I don't know. I've been working hard. Too hard maybe, I've been thinking of quitting for a while. Have I said before?”
“No.” said Maxwell.
“Yeah. It's just...shit isn't it really? Having to tell people how to do obvious things. It's depressing.” said Gomez.
“Maybe you should have a holiday.”
Gomez laughed and poured himself another drink. “Maybe. I don't know.” he was quiet for a while, looking at his glass.
“You said on the phone earlier something about Leanne?” said Maxwell, voice raising an octave.
“Yeah, I've been thinking about her a bit recently. Having a bit of a hard time. I need to process I think. My wife, my son. They died.” said Gomez. He took a drink. “And what did I do? Where was I?” The two men sat for a while, being quiet. “I'll be okay. Just going to finish this whiskey, watch some crap and go to bed. Thanks for coming anyway, I appreciate it.” said Gomez eventually.
Maxwell got up from his chair. “I don't know if you should be alone bud. Come out. You and me.”
Gomez shook his head. “No. As I say, I appreciate you calling in. And I'll call you if I need you. But now, I need to be alone.”
The two friends looked each other in the eye, trying to get a decent idea of what the other was feeling. Maxwell gave in. “Okay. I understand. Don't be a stranger though.” he said, hugging Gomez. They both got an extra point for embracing. They just needed to hug another fifty times to unlock an achievement in the friend section of their lives. Gomez nodded and walked with him to the front door. “See you later.”
“Yeah. See you later Max.”
Alone again. He went through his film collection and picked out Dog Chaser. It wasn't as good as he remembered it. The sixty year old DiCaprio ran through the empty streets of Las Vegas, shooting rabid dogs and cracking jokes. He turned it off after forty minutes and sat in the darkness. The whiskey was half empty. Going back into the kitchen, he felt something brush between the fingers of his hand. He looked down and saw a hair. Holding it up in front of him, he looked around the room. “What do you want? What does this mean?” he called out. No response. Not that he really expected one. Gomez took a gulp of whiskey and put the bottle down on the table. He dropped the hair in front of him and stared at it for a while, pushing it around, rolling it back and forth. “Leanne...” he said.
After he had packed everything back in the box except the photo, he put the box back upstairs and went to lie down in his living room. The drink had dulled his senses a bit, he relaxed into the soft rug and flicked from channel to channel. He had the hair in his hand, idly playing with it. Gomez thought back to when she was alive. She had such gorgeous hair, it was what had attracted him in the first place. He missed the way it shone in the sun and felt between his fingers but most of all he missed the smell. Once she had gone he didn't wash her pillow for a while, though her scent faded. Moments in time. It made him feel ill, how fragile everything seemed, there was no real difference between a dream or reality. Everything seemed as if it made sense yet could be broken in just a moment. Upon waking there was the realization that it had been a dream, occasionally a sense of loss. He wondered if upon dying that one would become aware that it had just been a life. Gomez woke. Time had passed, he wasn't sure how long he had slept but the sun had gone down and the living room was only lit by a nature programme about bacteria. Huge cells circled and swam around the room like translucent dolphins. He left the room, rinsing his mouth with whiskey. His vision was a little blurry. At first he thought it was because of the booze but after standing still, closing one eye and then the other he realized it was in just his left eye. Gomez went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror, taking out his contact lens and setting it down by the tap. He had forgotten how drab the world was without contacts. No clocks, bits of information, enhanced colours. Just stark reality. His vision still blurry, he leaned closer to the mirror to see if there was anything in his eye. A black dot. He leaned closer still and saw it was a hair.
His heart began thumping, his hand immediately went up to his eye. It had been aching strangely for a few days but he had put it down to a lack of sleep. Not a hair growing inside his eyeball. He looked at it again, moving his eyes from side to side to try and get a better look. It was tiny, the stubble on his chin was longer. He opened the medicine cupboard and took out a pair of tweezers and set them down on the sink. Gripping the sink with both hands, he looked down at the plug and thought about it. “Fuck.” he whispered. He opened and closed his hand a few times, trying to limber up before picking up the tweezers. Holding them a few inches away from his nose, he looked at himself in the mirror. He had began to sweat. Cold and damp. Gomez opened both eyes as wide as he could, leaning closer. The tweezers shook in his hand. “Fuck.” he said, putting them back down on the sink by his contact lens. He returned a minute later with the whiskey, swigging from the bottle. “Right...right.” he said. He picked up the tweezers again, trying to do it in one fluid movement. One eye watched his reflection whilst the other saw the metal fingers lurch into his field of vision, huge and blurry. With one of the prongs he gently stroked the hair. His eye immediately scrunched closed. “Fuck's sake!” he shouted to himself, it echoed around the bathroom. He should just go to hospital. What if it wasn't even a hair. What if it was a nerve or something. He had another drink of whiskey and held his eyelids open with one hand whilst the other edged forward again with the tweezers. As carefully as he could he pinched the tweezers shut and realized he was a few millimetres off his eye. He heard how heavy his breathing had become and tried to slow it down. “Right. Come on.” he said, going in with the tweezers. He pinched them shut and gritted his teeth. He gave a gentle pull and felt something move inside his eye. He managed to pull an inch or two before his eye scrunched shut. He blinked a few times and looked at himself. From his left eye dangled a hair. It bobbed up and down as his eyes moved. He reached up with his thumb and forefinger to take hold of it and began pulling, he felt it move inside his eye. There was some dull feeling that the hair was inside his skull. He kept pulling, wondering how long it was until it suddenly came free. It dangled down across his palm and he could feel the wet end brushing his wrist. A small dot of blood appeared where the hole had been, making him blink over and over. He studied the seven inch strand of hair, relieved. He sat on the toilet, shaking, wondering if he was going to vomit. But it was over now.
Once the bleeding had stopped he put the contact back in, pacing around his bedroom. Had all of this been some strange hallucination brought on by a hair being inside his head? Maybe he was free. He sat on the bed and looked across the room at the photo of himself and Leanne, years ago. Raising the bottle in the air at the photo, he smiled and then finished off the rest of the amber liquid. After all that he felt worn out. Gomez pulled off his trousers and got into bed.
He woke. It was dark and something felt wrong. Gomez rolled to one side and saw her, sleeping with her back to him. It had been so long, he wasn't sure if he was dreaming or not. Either way he felt cold as stone. He couldn't move or even speak. Her body rose and fell beneath the duvet as it had done when she was alive. Gomez rolled his tongue in his mouth dryly as he thought of what to do next. Beneath the covers he reached towards her, hand trembling. Closer and closer, his hand drew towards where her hip was. Should be. In his mind he was screaming, begging him to run. But he reached out and touched her. Skin. “Leanne?” he managed to say, quietly. She stirred beneath his hand and Gomez watched her roll towards him. Beneath his palm he felt her warm body slide, familiar. Tears welled in his eyes. Lulu rolled over and he saw her face. Wrinkled skin split across her skull, the visage of a long dead corpse. The thing screamed in his face, loudly. He felt his heart beat frantically in his chest as the scream grew louder and louder, deafening. As he frantically tried to get out of bed he vomited, scrambling away as fast as he could. Crawling along the carpet all he could see were his hands lit white from the moon as they swung in front of him, clawing his way along the floor. The roar rang in his ears but he couldn't hear it any more. He couldn't hear anything. He felt something in his throat. He stopped crawling, and with one hand he reached up to his mouth and felt hair. Gomez yanked it from his mouth but it didn't seem to end, he was choking. Not only that but the hair was now growing from his hands. A scream became lost amongst the fine fibres in his throat and he began to kick. His feet hit the floor over and over, causing the whole room to keep thumping. After a minute the kicking stopped. Where the man had been there was now a pile of hair. Lifeless. Quiet.
