Loss and Revelation

He finally told me today. Today! Of all days, why now? Why tell me such heartbreaking and world-shattering news on my 24th birthday? I know it had been on my mind for many months now… when I had first noticed the change, the difference in my appearance. Oh, such a shock it was… young man of sprightly age, good health, impossibly dry wit… suddenly having the earth crack and crumble beneath my feet.

But now… to have rumour confirmed, truth revealed… I told him he had to be wrong, it must be a mistake, but he wouldn’t listen—the sad, doleful eyes never left mine for a second, but they weren’t “looking” at me. They saw the future in the black of my eyes and they knew nothing could be done to slow it down, change it, stop it.

‘This shouldn’t be ‘appening to me… I’m too young… I’m too damn young!’

‘James, please calm down—this isn’t something to worry about! There are treatments, countless medications, and the best medical practitioners in the country are right here in this building. You’re not going to die, James.’

And so the conversation continued; I, understandably upset, growing evermore agitated, my doctor evermore infuriatingly calmer.

‘This is the end of my world—can’t you see that?!’ My hands shook as I bellowed.

‘James! Snap out of it before you get security in here! I’m your friend, and I’m also your doctor—I know what’s going to happen, trust me, and You Will Survive. You’ve got your family, friends, relatively good health, money, a girlfriend—what more could you want? Lots of people your age suffer from this, but they survive, their lives continue, some even better than before.’

‘But don’t you understand? I’ll lose my job, my career, any chance I have of a future life!’

‘James… you’re not going to die, you’re not in danger of losing your job, and you keep forgetting that not a soul but your own cares if you’ve got hair or not. Look at me, for Pete’s sake!’

The laughter lines most people see at the corners of others’ eyes, the “crows’ feet”, extended a lot further on my friend’s face, due to the fact that he had no hair on top of his head to hide them.

The shock of my friend exclaiming his own baldness made something in me “click”—I’d become friends with him regardless of his appearances, and the man had been a doctor for over fifteen years, rising to the top of his profession… how could I be so self-centred to think that I’d not survive without my hair?

Finis