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Forty-seven
Forty-seven.
I lay them out on a tissue and count again, from one end.
Forty-seven, still.
I picked them from the drain screen with my fingers after turning off the shower.
On the screen, they look like nothing more than a small dark tangle.
Teased apart one by one, they are longer than I thought.
Hair that reached below my shoulders lies on the white paper, at its full length.
It took two years to grow it this long.
In my first spring at work, I made up my mind and cut it short, and since then I have never once cut it above my shoulders.
Every season, I have booked an appointment just to have the ends trimmed.
Since October began, it feels as if more is left on the screen.
A few strands on the pillowcase in the morning.
One on the sleeve of my coat, on the station platform.
One more in the gaps of the keyboard at work.
At lunch, the colleague at the next desk picks a strand off my shoulder without a word.
I say thank you, and the tips of my ears go a little warm.
From the next night on, I started counting.
In the notes app on my phone, I write the date and the number, one line at a time.
On nights it falls under forty, I breathe a little easier.
On nights it goes past fifty, my hands grow more and more hesitant as I wash.
Gently, with the pads of my fingers.
Gently, rinsing the lather away.
Even so, the dark on the screen hardly lessens.
The things we least want to lose are the things we count.
Even knowing that counting will not bring a single strand back.
Under the cape
Saturday, I sit down in the chair at the salon.
A cape is fastened around my neck, and in the mirror only my face and hair remain.
“It’s been falling out so much lately.”
I try saying it to the stylist running a comb through my hair.
“Everyone tells me that in autumn.”
The voice is light.
Nothing more is said.
The sound of the scissors goes on behind my ear.
In the mirror, the ends are evened out, little by little.
On the floor, the hair that was cut is quietly swept together with a broom.
Those, I didn’t count at all.
When the cape comes off, the air around my neck is suddenly cool.
That night, under the covers, I looked up hair loss.
There was a study that re-examined records, from eight countries, of people worried about their shedding.
Most of the hairs collected, it said, had not broken off partway but had come out from the root.
More fell during washing than at any other time.
Hair goes through a cycle of growing and resting.
A hair that has finished growing and has been resting falls out, and from the same follicle, it seems, the next one begins to grow.
I turn off the screen and, in the dark, touch my fingertips to my scalp.
I can’t feel anything.
Somewhere I can’t feel, something may have already begun.
Fifteen
Wednesday night, I rented a table by myself.
I rack the balls in the triangle and, for the first time, try to play a whole rack through to the end.
With the first shot, the triangle breaks apart.
The fifteen scatter farther than I expected.
A ball drops.
I count, softly.
One.
A miss.
A ball drops.
Two.
Each time I say a number, the voice reaches only my own ears.
The easier a ball looks, the more likely I am to miss it.
The missed ball stops just short of the pocket and is still there.
The balls I sink disappear deep into the pockets.
The ones that didn’t go in stay on the table, waiting for their next turn.
Only the cue ball becomes neither, rolling on, still white.
It took a long time before the last one dropped.
I had counted up to six.
After that, somewhere along the way, I lost track of how many I’d sunk.
I pick up the triangle and gather the balls.
The ones that came out of the pockets and the ones that were left on the table a moment ago weigh the same in my palm.
I can no longer tell which ones I sank.
The fifteen settle into a single triangle once again.
I lift the triangle away, gently.
The balls stay on the table, unbroken.
I check the clock: half my rented time is still left.
I set down the cue ball once more.
On the screen
Home again, I wash my hair.
With the pads of my fingers, at my usual pressure.
On the drain screen, something dark has gathered again.
I pick up a single strand.
At the root, a tiny white bulb.
Its shape tells me it did not break off partway.
It must have grown down past my shoulders, then rested for a while.
I wrap that strand in a tissue with a few others.
Tonight, I don’t count.
The wrapped tissue is lighter in my hand than I thought.
I press the water from my hair with a towel.
Somewhere on my head, the next strand may already be starting to grow.
What I had been counting was what fell.
Why not make pool your next beauty habit?
👉 In the photo, I was really smiling.
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References
- Natarelli, N., Gahoonia, N. & Sivamani, R. K. (2023). Integrative and mechanistic approach to the hair growth cycle and hair loss. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 12(3), 893. doi:10.3390/jcm12030893
- Li, Y., Lin, S., Paterson, S., Dadd, T., Gu, J., Bhogal, R. K., Hudaya, Z., Selliah, H. Y., Pu, M. & Sun, J. N. (2026). New insights from data analysis of 12 global clinical studies on hair shedding. International Journal of Cosmetic Science. doi:10.1111/ics.70136
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