“Es un amor muerto,” the hairdresser trills with a coquettish laugh as she holds up a silver strand of my hair. A dead passion. In the harsh glare of the salon’s lights, the gray hair is almost invisible. When I remain silent, she shrugs wordlessly and continues with my hair cut. But she does not remove the gray hair.

Days later, I remembered the gray hair on the way home from work. I am driving in the rain, windshield wipers dancing back and forth in their lazy waltz. My hands suddenly desperate to pluck it out. Where is it? As if I could pluck the memory of that dead passion out. So young, too young to have a gray hair. Old enough to know of love, but not to possess only dead passions. Not yet.

I decided to leave the gray hair alone. Not because I have chosen to “grow old gracefully” (whatever that means), but because to pluck it out would mean to pluck a passion out of my life. Dead or otherwise.

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Short little piece previously published on Ficlets. Believe it or not, this actually happened to me! The hairdresser wasn't being rude, she's someone I've been going to since forever, so she's practically family and has no problems speaking to me so familiarly ... obviously.

updated Dec 28 '08 by AnaCristina