The Haircut

It is January first, in the evening. We are listening to Linda Perhacs. Paul is someone who says he's not that into records but has hundreds and they are alphabetized. I love this about Paul. "I love this song," I say. I might have also talked about the Joni-Mitchell-acclaim Linda never got and used words like "groundbreaking" and "masterpiece." These are things that sound like things I would say. I like talking about music with Paul. We smoke weed on the green sofa. The sofa is what I would call incredibly decorative. You could scroll through sofa listings on eBay and find Paul's sofa there. It would be between the white marble Versailles benches and the reupholstered walnut parlor sets. You find it when you least expect it: the "Beautiful Antique Victorian Velvet Sofa LoveSeat With Cabriole Legs." There would be twenty-five sample photos. The description would say "LOCAL PICK-UP ONLY." You look at the first three photos, admire it for its ornate carved wooden accents and lack of tufted velvet, and then pass it by. You don't pass it by because of its $800 price tag, but because by the third sofa photo you think to yourself, if you really want to kiss someone like it's your job you don't do it on a Beautiful Antique Victorian Velvet Sofa LoveSeat With Cabriole Legs. My boss at work once said that I'm "not made for work," but I think I am made for kissing, and I've been looking for a new sofa so I know a lot about this scenario.

Paul hands me a towel to use as a cape. There are "funny" dogs wearing hats and sunglasses on this towel. Paul says it is his favorite towel. Maybe he didn't say that, I'm not sure. The dogs wrap around me. "Parallelograms" starts to play and I want to ask Paul if he's ever walked out of the ocean as the current was being pulled back by the sea. It's a confluence of values, I would explain. Like jumping in an elevator at the right time. You try to approach the shore but realize there is no shore, and there is no you anymore, the you you thought you were taking swimming is still out there and will never come back, that everyone who encourages you to Keep Moving ForwardTM has no understanding of gravity. I can't believe we get to watch Earth happen, I would say.

Paul's cutting my hair and I might be in a tesseract. I cried through 65% of Interstellar when I watched it for the first time, and this is a three-hour movie so 65% is no joke. Maybe it is more beautiful to say that I wept. "I love this song," I say. When I feel comfortable I find myself repeating things. I realize that this is a version of "Parallelograms" I've never heard. My other realization is that I might be having an auditory hallucination of time splitting open. In this moment, that feels like I am watching clementines tumble out of a milk crate. They gain momentum from the fall and then gently roll around. Their only bastion in this world is the furniture that slows them down. I am not moving but I am doing so in slow-motion. This version has an instrumental section which seems to last for hours. In an album review, I might say sprinkle in phrases like Perhacs expands. Sublunar qualities. Heaven-like sonorities. Circuitous ringing. Beguiling. Maybe I would throw in the word pneumatic even though I've never uttered that word in my life. I might urge my reader to listen to Brahms' "How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place" and quote the requiem in conclusion. My soul and body crieth out, yea for the living God. Blest are they, that dwell within Thy house. Paul's free hand is on my head and I feel like I could write a short story about how this makes me feel. Like I am a pet, submissive, need guiding, holding me in place. I'm not a submissive but I like this feeling. Time dilating. He's cutting my hair, it "grew fast."

A dying star can swell to incalculable size as it swallows planets. This process can take millions of years. Is Paul holding my head with the desperation of wanting me so much he can't bear waiting? There's a pause as the buzzer wire gets tangled in Paul's plants. Am I so entangled in the tesseract that I can't help but feel overcome by all the data in the air? Why do I keep bowing my head like it is getting heavier? I feel like I am dying, enveloping the planets of the room. My dying cry is saying nothing while I sift through my sexuality. Three million years later, I am still sifting. I have so much work to do. I estimate two million more years until the sofa is completely swallowed, and then several more million for every hardwood floorboard. Maybe he's just trying to angle my head correctly, to get the hair behind my ears. It's dark and he missed those hairs last time. Five-hundred-thousand years pass. I start to observe what's happening like it's already a memory. Remember when you gave me a haircut? I would ask. I'm doing that now, Paul would say. That was a great time. I'm doing that now. I'd say I miss when, my hair is already growing, a confluence of values, an assertion, swallowing, accidentally using the word "love." My head feels like velvet. Paul's hair grows faster than mine. I wrap the dogs around him.