Only To Look At

Flash Fiction

Only To Look At

My hair is a pain. Not in pain, although there is always pain when I try to brush it. Natural Curly, they call it. I call it Nasty. I’ve been dealing with it most of my life. (I was apparently bald upon arrival.)

I spent the first years in pain because I couldn’t comb, or brush my own hair. It’s tricky even for straight hair when you’re young. Though I’d bet it didn’t hurt as much… Actually, I know that, because my sister has straight hair. I watched her get her hair combed by Mom many times, I could count the snarls stops on one hand (if I’d known how to count then, she’s only a year older than me.)

Mom also had straight hair, but she did try hard not to pull mine when she combed it. It was literally impossible! Something I found out myself when I was old enough to comb it myself. Brush really… but because I found if I could get the hair on the showy edges unsnarled, it “looked” done (even though underneath there were knots galore!) I got caught frequently… but eventually learned my own way to un-knot it all. Still painful if I let it go too long, but better. It involves a spray bottle and a very very wide tooth comb…
Nowadays I never go out the door with snarls. I have a zillion hats that I wear to keep my hair quiet until I’m indoors again. It’s like having a three-year-old stuck to your head twenty-four seven. But I know how to handle her now.
I see the pictures of me as a baby, when my hair was really it’s curliest. I can see how people thought it was so darn cute. They just didn’t know, only to look at…