The Number-Four Fade

We've been studying the art of micro-fiction (also known as "flash fiction") in Short Story class, and we've been assigned to write a piece for next week. Feedback might be nice; it's not due 'til next Tuesday.

“The Number-Four Fade”
by Cameron L. Maris

“Beth” is the name she writes, next to my name, on the chart, which I glance over as she sets it on the cold beige counter. When she asks me what I want her to do, I give the usual rambling description as if I am just now speaking the words for the first time, like it had just now occurred to me to get a haircut. Beth drapes the protective plastic cape over my shoulders, unfurling it out around me into the air like a bed sheet.
“Are you from here?” Beth speaks awkwardly and deliberately; this is a rehearsed conversation that hairstylists must memorize.
“No. From Alaska originally, but I was raised mostly in Sheridan, about four hours north of here.”
Beth turns on the clippers and begins cutting. I attempt to continue the conversation. “You?”
“Here.” Beth speaks in one-word poems, flash-of-light love sonnets.
“In Laramie? Born and raised?”
“Yep.”
“Wow. What’s it like going through puberty in a University town?” (Ha Ha.)
“It was actually . . . boring.”
I wait for her to continue the small-talk, but she never will. I want to ask her things, like if she is a student, but I resist from fear of embarrassing her. I can feel the blade of the clippers pulling and cutting each individual hair, Autumn wind yanking leaves violently but passionately from a tree.
I watch Beth’s hands moving in the mirror. She wears three rings, two on her left hand and one on her right. Her hair is dyed two different colors; her thin frame looks even thinner and more fragile as she stood next to my square shoulder. Her breast, firm and round beneath her rubber apron, brushes me as she moves past. I look like a granite formation next to her willowy figure.
Beside us in the waiting area, two young blond boys wrestle with each other. Their older sister chastises them, “You’re going to bump into that guy,” motioning to me.
“Yeah,” I smile at the children, “You wouldn’t want to bump me, or she might cut my ear off. You wouldn’t want Beth to cut my ear off, would ya guys?” The boys say nothing, giggle and run away. Their sister stays behind and smiles. She feels vindicated. I have vindicated her authority, her womanhood. She is proud, and I am proud of her.
“Don’t worry, Beth, I know you won’t cut my ear off,” I joke, “despite the wild things in the corner.” Beth smiles and blushes, but she doesn’t reply. I briefly imagine Beth’s hand slipping, and lopping off my ear in one smooth motion. The blood is dark and warm, and it looks beautiful on Beth’s smooth hands.
The front of Beth’s jeans rub against my shoulder as she cuts. I can see her nude, laying in my bed; I see myself making love to her in the cold glow of the moonlight, she, writhing with sharp and bitter desire. All of space and time folds into a tiny sliver of air, no wider than a wisp of hair, and I can see it all. I wonder in this moment if she can see the same things I can.
“In the future, you can just tell them you want a number-four fade,” Beth says quietly, in almost a whisper.
“So if I come here again, I can ask for Beth, and I can tell you I want the number-four fade?”
“Yep.”
When Beth is finished cutting, she removes the plastic cape and leads me to the cash register. I am much too generous in tipping her, since the cut she gave me was far too short, and nothing much like what I had asked for. I glance back once at the pile of my dead hair on the floor, mourning briefly and silently.
I sense the icy breath of snow on my neck, and I feel naked. Winter is coming; winter is here, and I am totally, woefully, unforgivably unprepared.