Stories to Tell in the Dark

I Keep Finding Hair in my Shower Drain

I live a normal life. I have a normal job, and normal friends. I've never really been great at anything, but, then again, I've never really been terrible at anything either. My life had just been, well, meh. And I was ok with that.

Looking back, I was very ok with that.

But that all changed the day I found hair in my shower.

Allow me to explain.

For some people, finding hair in their shower is a normal occurrence. Maybe it's their own, from their chest, legs, scalp, or places less mentionable. Or maybe it was their girlfriend's- from past experience, I know that they can shed more than the golden retriever that grew up in my childhood home.

That would be normal, if my hairless twenty three year old body looked like puberty had even crossed my mind, or if I had gotten laid more than once in the past six months since I had moved into my new apartment. But it didn't, and I hadn't.

My apartment had only one bedroom, one kitchen, one bathroom, one unused living area, and one refrigerator filled with much more than one bottles of liquor. I worked long hours at my job, a low level accountant crunching numbers delivered to my desk by an endless conveyor belt of business transactions, so it was rare that I saw my neighbors.

Sometimes, though, as I ascended the three stories of wooden steps in tune with the moon rising into the deep night sky, I caught a flourish of black hair whipping into room 312, just across the hall from me in 311. I also caught myself wishing she never left so fast, and maybe invited me out for a drink in the hallway between our rooms. I could see the drops splattered from her nightcap drink on the concrete outside, and sometimes even casually wondered if she was a beer or liquor person.

Most likely beer, I thought, looks like she could go for a corona. With a lime wedge.

I don't really know what made me think she would like a corona, but it made sense to me. Just kind of felt right.

Then the one day I climbed the stairs a little quieter than normal, and I caught her before she could disappear.

"Hey there," I said, putting on my best smile and waving my hand.

She was sitting on the bench outside her room, staring at my doorway in front of her. Her face was in her hands, and I realized that the drops on the concrete might not be from condensation on her night cap drink. She started, glancing up towards me and wiping her eyes, the water droplets causing dark stains to bloom on her crimson dress as she spoke.

"I'm sorry, I should be going. Didn't mean to bother you."

"No, it's ok. Here, what's your name? I'm Michael." I held out my hand, but she didn't take it, so I sat next to her instead, and continued talking, "Nice place, this complex. Don't you think?"

"I hate it."

"I'm sorry then. There's other places you know, other places around here you could go to."

"I can't leave here. I just can't." She said, and tears welled into her eyes again.

"I didn't mean to upset you, -"

"Maria." She said, and offered me a faint smile.

"Maria. It's too beautiful a night to be sad. Would you like something to drink?"

She hesitated, glancing over me, and I could almost feel her gauging my creep factor.

"I would like that, Michael."

"Good. Let me guess- Corona and Lime?"

As soon as I spoke, the flickers of smile that I had kindled across her mouth were extinguished. She stiffened, her eyebrows knitting together.