The Haircut

Eric’s two daughters didn’t want their father to go bald. It made him look sick. But chemotherapy had already taken most of Eric’s hair. Geodee might as well remove the rest.

On their deck, Eric’s wife carefully maneuvered the clippers with one hand while collecting his fallen hair with the other. She had done this ever since learning his cancer was terminal — an effort to hold on to every bit of him. As she cut, Eric talked, describing a strange dream he’d had just a few nights earlier.

He dreamed that his disease was all a dream. In the dream within his dream, he relived every step of his illness — the treatments and surgeries, the pain, the doctors, the fear and sadness. When his eyes opened in reality, there were a few seconds between sleep and wakefulness when he was flooded with relief, awash with gratitude that the terrible thing had only been a nightmare.

Then he realized. It was all a dream. Nothing had changed. The cancer was real.

Geodee quietly wiped her tears and kept cutting.