A room full of goldfish

Like all things that bear a resemblance to living substance, hair has a wisdom of its own. Observe how left to its own devices stray strands will coalesce into little whorled balls, or weave together in silent unopposed rivers on carpets, streaking down stairs, into corners where they are discovered, in eruptions, matting together quietly.

Even when it belongs wholly to one owner, hair never is content to be sat complacently in one place. It waits for opportunities. 

Today as always, Elsa took her place in the parlour and set to work. Her basket was filled with a discarded pageant of small life broken - a nightingale which had sung itself into dissolution by rupturing its chest in an ecstacy of song, a shrew with a jutting corset of displaced ivory ribcage poking through matted bloodied fur, a sad collection of unknown marsupials whose once bright eyes had grown as dull as stone. She worked hard mending, setting, repairing, but her labours were never for the benefit of the creatures she worked on. She worked to her employer’s request, quietly embalming and arranging their restored limbs for display. 

Here she was grateful for invisibility and silence. From time to time she reached up with her free hand and pulled fretfully at the remnants of her blunt shorn fringe in a rhythmic, constant motion, to soothe or to punish, she herself did not know.

A silvery bell. 

She walked, both invisibly and silently, to the room to which she was summoned. Nervously she reached for her rudimentary forelock, then, remembering, tucked it away hurriedly beneath her lace cap. 

The room she entered was rich. The twin ostentatious colours of red and gold dominated its landscape, entwined on a rococco loveseat, embellishing a set of belligerent velvet curtains, on footstools and vases alike. Amidst the decadence, the Green Fairy and her favourite baboon were sat primly facing each other acoss an oak chessboard.

The Green Fairy was difficult to assign a definitive gender to based on appearances. How does one decide on such a thing when faced with a buboe headed being whose bald head was adorned with ripples of skin, with earthy features that can best be described as tuberous? 

Elsa watched them wordlessly as the Green Fairy removed single chess pieces to hand them to the baboon, who snapped their heads off immediately and flung the rubble on the floor. It was their favourite game. They did not bother to honour her with a greeting or a pause.

“Where is my display of the dancing swallows? Have you finished embalming them?” enquired the Fairy peevishly between brittle snaps. 

“They- they are proving d-difficult to preserve,” began Elsa in a faltering voice, “their wings disintegrate too swiftly for me to -“ 

“Where are the dancing swallows?” An interruption repeated in tones that barely varied from the previous interrogation. 

Elsa began again, more forcefully this time. “Madam the swallows you sent me were not fit for purpose. I rather think that-“

The only warning she received was that an errant knight playing piece was flung at an aggresive vector at her to collide unceremoniously with the panelling behind. The baboon opened its jaws wide and aimed a full shrieking roar in contribution. 

“Elsa”, the Fairy began, with a voice the timbre of small bones crunching,” you are wrong. You are WRONG, you are ALWAYS WRONG. You have not been brought here to THINK, you are here to DO. And you are NOT DOING!” The Fairy built up to an exquisite crescendo, “When you happen to have a thought, you stop, and ask ME what you should be DOING. That is all.”

The baboon handed her a scroll. It said “Not to think, here to do.” in small handwriting. 

Elsa pulled at her hair over and over again as she left. She felt it run through her fingers, the soft and pliant nature belying its bristle and tensile strength. 

She went to lie on the rug in the antechamber. It was woven of a dark rich mahogany springy material, soft, silken and supple. It was made entirely of Elsa’s shorn tresses. She went there whenever she was distressed, to feel its familiar weight and to understand that it was a reminder of yet another part of her that the Green Fairy exploited for her own amusement.

That night after the nth attempt to glue more swallow wings onto their decrepit bodies, Elsa fell asleep. As the candles went out all over the Fairy’s house, there was the minutest of rustles from the antechamber. 

By the first stroke of midnight, there was a sighing sweeping noise from the top of the stairs.

By the time the full moon bloomed through the windows of the Red and Gold room there was a rushing bristle from the gaping open door.

By the time the deadly nightshade plants were dallying with witches, there was an unusual blanket of darkness on the bed. 

Slowly, very slowly dark tendrils closed tenderly around the thick expanse of puce coloured neck.

Gently, very gently probing fingers reached through the bulbous nasal passages past the throat, causing just the slightest tickle from the odd scraping sensation of hundreds of filaments sliding against membrane. 

As insidiously as the growth of hair the asphyxiation of the Green Fairy takes place. Between the slow throttle and the muffling choke, breath is extinguished as subtly as candle flame. 

By the morning there was a grey buboe headed tuberous featured figure on the bed with an enormous growth of hair sprouting from every orifice. Elsa spent a moment regarding the ingenious use of rug, and only took one moment to decide that she would refuse to embalm her former employer even if she was asked nicely.