780 woke up. It was a fine day. He got to shower first. 781 had not come back yet, and he wondered why. 781 was stuck at work until late and she was still in the bunk bed when he left. He did not care about intercourse; his body was still recovering from yesterday’s long shift.
780’s job wasn’t that difficult. He washed people’s hair. He learned how to hate the smell of shampoo and conditioner. The trend was to smell like coconut, but his stomach disagreed. Still, he would smile while the women sat in the chair. His speech held the same cadence and his smile the same width.
He envied his clients. They had proper names. Before going to sleep, he mumbled their names. Catharine, Joanne, Maria, Elizabeth… He remembered their names and wondered if someday he would be able to be called by something other than his badge number.
Another thing he envied was their outfits. They arrived dressed in colors whose names he didn’t even know. There were many different shapes and cuts, revealing legs and knees. 780 only exposed his legs and knees during the shower. He could not tell whether every client was a man or a woman, but most women had their hair styled in curls while the men wore theirs straight back. The excess fabric covered their bosoms.
Facial hair was forbidden to him. Not that 780 cared that much, since he had a nice square jaw. He never overate in order not to lose its shape. But one day, a male came in with a magnificent red beard, beautifully braided and oiled, and he let 780 wash his long hair.
He’d seen it all, from the straightest hair to the coiliest. He enjoyed working with curly and coily hair the most. Straight-haired patrons usually had excess oil and sebum. And he found the curls and coil patterns prettier.
780 had ambition, despite loathing his daily washing routine. He started as a child, sweeping the hair off the salon’s floor with a small broom. Then he moved up to stock clerk, fetching the products for the ones washing and coloring hair. When 780 started growing a beard, he was assigned to washing hair.
And he was great at washing hair; 780 was tall and had long fingers. His patrons only had their hair washed during his shift. More than the length of his fingers, he had firm hands that massaged their scalps like no other. Perhaps that was the reason he was never promoted to cutting hair. He could not wait to cut hair, he had been practicing holding scissors and a comb in his hands.
The promotion was his dream, as 780 had never seen his own reflection in the mirror. 780 did not know what he looked like. He did not have to. 781 was his partner, she shaved his head and he shaved hers. So many times, he had imagined her with hair. In his mind, right before climax, he screamed, oh my Lia. She had a small and round face. She looked like Lia.
Sometimes, 780 would lose himself staring at the bottles of shampoo. He knew what words were. He’d heard about them. But nobody with numbers had access to the meanings behind them. They did not have to read as it was beyond their obligations. Instead, they received constant training on how to recognize each bottle by its fruit design.
Usually, the person in charge of training would scream—since the numbered could not recognize the fruits on the labels. The numbered, however, had never seen fruit. 780 had never seen a coconut, but he knew it was disgusting, based on the smell of the shampoo. The numbered ate a food mix that came in small containers. Their meals were stripped of texture or flavor.
One day, after washing thirty heads, 780’s back was burning from bending over all day. He was called into the administration room.
‘780, you will start training for cutting hair. Congratulations.’
‘Yes, sir.’
He was happy and flexed the facial muscles that were supposed to move his shaved eyebrows. His boss wouldn’t know, they shaved their brows too. However, during dinner, he realized 936 was missing. Not because she was particularly different, but because her assigned spot was empty. Good for me, he thought.
He went back to his bunk, ready to have intercourse, but 781 was under the blankets. It was their code, so he lay down and thought of the next day. He could do it himself, but it would shake their frail bunk and bother 781.
The next day, 780 took a shower and wore his usual gray suit, consisting of a long-sleeved shirt with buttons on the right and long drawstring pants. He placed his tag with his number on the left, above his heart. He could barely concentrate on his porridge, so big was his excitement about his promotion.
Knowing he could not yet cut the patrons’ hair, 780 expected to practice on some sort of hair model. He thought about the dummies he had used in the beginning to train for scalp massage. But he found himself in a small room with three chairs, and in each chair sat a hair model, each with a different hair texture. And to his disappointment, the mirror was covered.
On the chairs, other numbered people. They did not have beard or eyebrows, but their hair was long. 780 wondered if there were numbered men with beards too. He could not chuckle at such a thought as his instructor was behind him. He adjusted the chair and felt relieved that no longer being bent over a sink.
And after a long day of parting and trimming hair, he went back to his bunk.
‘781, would you like to mate?’
‘Not really. I apologize.’ 781 covered her body and curled up in her bed.
780 felt an inexplicable rage but tried to sleep. He would solve it inside the shower box in the morning. Weeks passed as he trained on every hair type and length, learning every type of haircut they offered. His instructor patted him on the shoulder and told him he was ready.
For the big day, he received a beige uniform. 780 could almost cry, the fabric felt soft on his skin. He took his position in front of the room and soon a clerk brought him a beautiful lady with lush, curly hair down to her waist, who had come in for a seasonal trim. It was his job to bring the patron to the chair, accommodate them and place a fluffy blanket on their lap and then the extra long cutting cape, in black.
780, concentrated on making the patron comfortable, shifted his gaze away from her and finally looked into the mirror. He was hideous. He teared up. He knew numbered people were different from the patrons, and he saw other numbered people, hairless and dull, but seeing himself struck him in a way he could not explain.
‘Hey! First-timer, huh? Get over it and cut my hair!’
‘Yes, Madam. I apologize for the inconvenience,’ he said in a shaky voice. His hands trembled, but he knew he would be punished if he did not cut her hair.
He knew she was dressed in something called animal print. But he did not know what an animal was, he wondered what shape it could have. Eventually, the shock wore off and he finished the day. Just before the supervisor left, 780 hurried to her office.
‘Madam supervisor, why didn’t you tell me I was… ugly.’
‘You are all ugly. Did you think you were any different from the rest of us?’ the supervisor laughed.
He went back to his bunk without eating. He was devastated. He tapped the upper bed and 781 looked at him. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I am ugly, I saw myself in the mirror. They are pretty and colorful, they are allowed to have hair, they can do everything and we can’t!’
‘Quiet! Are you insane? Why do you think 936 disappeared? She was complaining just like you.’
‘You are right… I have a question for you. Don’t you like our pairing anymore?’
781 jumped out of the bed and undressed. 780 saw her body covered in bite marks and bruises. 781 cried silently.
‘Who’s doing that to you?’
She just cried. He knew it was the patrons. But he helped her dress and they held each other as they slept. He bottled up his rage and went to work the next day. They had no choice. During a haircut he cut his finger with the scissors, and he found out his insides dripped red.
Next time, when 781 shaved his beard, brows and hair, he forced his fingertip against the razor blade and he dripped red again.
‘I am red,’ he smiled, showing it to 781.
‘Silly, we are all red inside!’ she pressed his finger to stop the bleeding.
‘I didn’t know. You are my best pair.’
‘You are my best pair too.’
780 wished he could follow 781 to her job, but he did not have permission to enter her department. Instead, he went to cut hair and to hear the madams talking about nonsense such as summer, grass, football, and pools—all foreign concepts to him.
He knew the patrons came from above; from the salon door, he could see them coming down the escalator. But the numbered didn’t know exactly from where. His head ached from so many questions. Seeing his reflection was a curse. He heard the other hairdressers who had access to mirrors speaking about how seeing their reflection stole part of their feelings.
The mirror, for the colorful people, seemed to have the opposite effect. They smiled and fluffed their hair. They even had devices to capture their images. 780 wondered where they had their dormitories and if their bunk beds were bigger than his. If their food was served at fixed times like his. He knew for sure they didn’t live in pairs because they didn’t have to shave each other.
The scissors were sharp and his cuts were precise. The scissors were sharp. 780 wondered if the colorful people were drab on the inside and needed to compensate by wearing colorful fabric instead. To his disappointment, they were red just like him. But if they grew hair everywhere and were red on the inside, what would make them different? 780 reflected.
But he didn’t think for long. The patron was gushing blood, suffocating on her own blood, on the floor. 780 was not arrested. He was shocked dead. It was clean and fast. His body tag removed, followed by his beige outfit.
Nothing could go to waste. They eviscerated his body. His organs went to the hospital. His skin, muscles, bones, and bone marrow were sent to the local pet food factory.
780 might have killed one of the colorful, but in the end, he saved many.
