Frigid Flora

thirty-one - the recording

Chapter Thirty-One

The way I saw my surroundings depended on what type of mood I was in. Sometimes a ceiling was just a painted bit of wall above my head with a white lampshade. On occasion it was more than that. It was a pale blue square of sky with a white moon at its centre, gleaming down upon me. Sometimes the night sky was simply as it was. Dark and starry. Other times, like tonight, it looked like a vast sheet of black fabric had been draped above the rooftops, hammered in here and there with glinting silver flat headed screws. Stars really were marvellous. All indentical little twinkles alone out there and burning up. They might have looked close to one another from where I stood, but up there they were miles and miles and miles apart. So far apart and isolated.

Just like me, I thought. Surrounded by people but alone.

I swung my head back into my bedroom. I'd had it dangling out of my window so that I could see the sky above but it was just too cold for that now and much too windy. I glanced in the mirror to inspect the state of my hair. It was wet and snarled from the harsh weather and I couldn't help but think of how long it had grown. The weather was too rainy. The window had been opened too wide. The room was too cold. And my hair, my hair was too long.

I left my room in search of the bathroom. It took around ten minutes to find the scissors hidden behind the roll of bandages in the back of the cabinet.

"Someone's here to see you!" Ian's voice boomed from downstairs. It was followed by the slam of the front door and quiet chatter.

Distantly I knew I didn't like his voice. Didn't like anything about it. I couldn't quite think of why my opinion on the man was so important at this moment in time, however, so I replied with something I deemed relatively friendly. "Thank you, Ian! Tell them I'm in the bathroom."

By the time Skylar had appeared in the bathroom doorway I'd already snipped a few inches worth of hair from the side of my head. If it hadn't been for the rain that had drenched my head, then the descent of the hair clumps might have been pretty. Perhaps they'd have floated to the floor like chocolate feathers. Instead the damp, slightly waved endings to my hair, having been weighed heavy with water, plummeted to the tiles like oddly shaped stones.

"Flora," Her voice was uncertain. "What are you doing, exactly?"

I smiled and waved the scissors in lieu of hello. "What does it look like? I'm cutting my hair."

She grimaced. "By yourself? Is... that supposed to be evenly cut? A straight line?"

I shrugged. "'S a work in progress."

"Right," Skylar sat on the toilet seat next to me and watched. "How are you doing? Your mum said you were acting- off with her."

"What? My mum's not home yet. She said earlier she'd be back for dinner when she left me aaalll alone with Ian." I sang.

Skylar had her worried mother hen look on. I wished I could tell her I was fine and she had nothing to worry about, that I was better now, but she began talking again before I got the chance.

"What time do you think it is? And Jesus, look at your hair or at least your reflection when you're cutting it or you'll make an even bigger mess."

I stretched round the back of my head, chopping blindly at a spot I hoped was in the centre. Damp waves fell down the backs of my legs, some finding their way into one of my mega large slippers. They might have been my mother's come to think of it. I shook it out. "Almost dinner time?"

"No, it's almost the middle of the night."

"Oh," I laughed. "That would explain the stars."