Human Hair

Human hair.

It has been a while since I began discovering long, black strands of hair in the most unlikely of places. The first time I saw them, they were hanging on the clothes line, stuck onto a clothes pin and moving in the wind like freshly-washed laundry. Once, I found them caught between cabinet doors, on cupboard hinges. It was all very strange. They always appeared as if they had just been pulled out—several smooth, untangled strands at a time.

Human voices.

The sound of men and women screaming. The dragged-out, high-pitched type that blends together incoherently, sort of like what you hear while on a roller coaster ride with friends. I only heard them at night. They usually sounded like they were having fun, but who knows, really. Sometimes the screaming on roller coasters can sound tortured, too. It never really bothered me until I told my sister about it, and she had no idea what I was talking about.

Human friends.

Years ago, when I was younger, I used to speak with an entire family of imaginary friends in the form of my own distorted reflection in the bathroom mirror. I named them Cookie-face because of how my face looked flattened in the reflection. Speaking with them was not strange to me at all, but my family eventually found out and made me stop. I suppose it might have scared them.

Happy Halloween.