The Kid With the Hair

 

 

 

My boy Ryan is besotted with this random college kid who lives in our neighborhood. Ryan calls him simply “the kid with the hair.” I don't get the attraction. But Ryan carries a disposable camera with him at all times, in case the kid with the hair comes into range.

 

The kid's hair is long, thick, and lustrous. Because I have an irrational relationship with my own childhood, when I see this kid I see threads of Cocoa Krispies.

 

Months pass without a sighting. “Ryan,” I implore. “Stop carrying that camera around. The kid's probably dead.” I don't mean that, literally. I mean it as he is not a part of our perspective anymore.

 

The kid with the hair has a thin face with a delicate nose, large liquid eyes, small perfect lips. His figure is clipped, wiry. He looks just like thousands of other vascular college boys. Ryan's attraction for him is unfathomable, basically; Ryan's own hair has been thinning for years, but he's never exhibited any kind of fetish for, say, VO5 commercials.

 

The kid with the hair can only represent something unattainable. Something Ryan can't have. My own hair is so fine it threatens to crumble to dust. I am all that Ryan has attained, and I hope for everyone's sake that the kid with the hair finds his destiny.

Seth Gall has had work published in China, Canada, and the U.S.  His work has appeared in Word Riot, SmokeLong Quarterly, and Nanoism.  He is S.H. Gall in decomP Magazine, Nanoism, issues one and 27 of SmokeLong Quarterly, Five Star Literary Stories, and Fictionaut.