Morning everyone. Running late I know. But at least last night I slept like a rock. It was heaven. A few more nights like that and I will actually feel fully rested. I won’t know what to do with myself then. But for now, lets get moving into the morning writing prompt so we can start this day.
A part of me wanted to fit this in with the person from the Monday and Tuesday writings. It is still a possibility but not quite as close a fit. So it may be something completely different.
Wednesday, March 8th: It had been ten years since he last shaved his beard.
It had been ten years since he shaved his beard. When he walked in the room he was greeted like a stranger until realization hit and people recognized him without the whiskers. It was strange to see him bare faced. His hair sprouted from both his head and face in unruly spikes. No matter how he brushed it or how neatly combed it was in the morning, a day of work would see it standing up a he ran his ringers through it. Sometimes he did this in frustration, sometimes in simple thought. He did the same to his beard and as a consequence, no matter how neat and tidy they were upon arrival, they were always spiky and unruly when he left.
I tried not to stare as he made his way to his work space. I had known him a long time and had vague recollections of him without a beard. We started at the company together and he was bare faced then. I remember watching the beard slowly grow as we both stayed. Most of those who were either here when we arrived or took employment around the same time we did had long since moved on. As I looked around I realized we were among the oldest of the employees in the building. It usually didn’t occur to me.
Today it seemed startlingly obvious.
‘It’s the lack of beard,’ I thought as I looked away, not wanting to be caught staring. His bare face sent my memory back, reminding me of my start here. My thoughts shifted uncomfortably with in my mind as I was forced to contemplate myself. I quickly switched them back to him,. Wondering why the sudden change.
The beard, when he grew it, came on gradually. First a shadow of unshaven cheek, something that could barely be called stubble. Then the stubble our old supervisor claimed made him look rugged. Slowly it grew into a full beard. He never tried any shaping other than to keep it on his face and not let it grow down his neck. He had a definitive stopping point. He also never let it grow out to cover his chest. Once it reached it’s full length, it was maintained at that same length.
Now it was gone.
I knew that shaving a beard had to be a much quicker process than growing one, still it seemed more sudden than it should.
‘But I suppose he couldn’t shave it part way each day for several days like a reverse time lapse,’ I thought a I reached for my coffee mug. Still even though the suddenness of removal was explained the reasoning wasn’t. why had he chosen to shave his beard now.
I shook my head and sipped from my cup as I turned back to my computer. There wasn’t a reason I heard for him growing it, so I doubted I would hear one for him shaving it. Despite working here with him for so long, we weren’t close. Sure we shared a few jokes now and then that sometimes went over other’s heads. And occasionally we ate lunch together. But that was a routine proximity friendship. We were both here and had been here together so long that we each found the other to be a familiar presence.
I knew little of his life. He, like me, never married and had no kids. I remembered him taking off a few days in our first year because his father passed away. And I remembered five years later he took a similar amount of time when his mother passed. He was an only child. I can’t remember when that came up. It was just various informational tidbits one picks up over time.
‘But I doubt a death caused the beard to be removed.’
Ten til Midnight 