Vanity Unfair

                She twirled her long brown hair with her left hand, while holding firm to her cell phone in her right. Her hair was thick, luxurious and apparently quite a pain for Morgan. She was constantly flipping it from one side of her head or the other. Back and forth, or over the top, it always settled in a way that she didn’t seem to like, but she didn’t want to put it in a hair tie or a bun. She didn’t think it was a good look for her.

 So far 23 years old had been a terrible disappointment and she wore that disappointment as a constant scowl. All she had was her hair and some dumb job that she was totally not going to do forever since it was lame and all the jerks that worked there were always trying to get in to her yoga pants. Which she thought was totally acceptable to wear to work as long as you wore a cute sweater and boots with them.  It was no big deal, but why it gave all those horn dogs the right to think that she’ll be taking her yoga pants off for any of them was just dumb. It was creepy and certainly not her problem.  She didn’t ask to be so pretty.

She flipped her hair again and the ends landed on the shoulder of the train passenger next to her. Morgan was so annoyed that some person decided that they could sit next to her. She sat in the same seat every morning, on the same train car, and made it very clear with her scowl up another scowl that no one should sit next to her.  Now there’s another business guy next to her probably thinking about her yoga pants. Yuck.

Morgan flipped her long hair the other way and continued scrolling through her 890 friend’s posts on Facebook.  They were so lame. Why were her dumb friends getting married so soon? There was so much clubbing to do and awesome rich guys to meet, so why Christie was marrying Jacob was so dumb. They’ll so divorce.  Morgan flipped her hair to the other side of her face. The guy next to her moved slightly since he didn’t feel like getting whipped by her ends again.

Her right thumb just kept scrolling while she twirled some of her hair with her left index finger. She twirled her hair very fast, as if it were a nervous tic. It wasn’t a casual looking movement, but very purposeful.  The businessman next to Morgan adjusted in his seat. Morgan let an exasperated sigh escape with a barely audible ‘tsk’ to follow.  She flipped her hair back over the whole top of her head.

She looked out the window of the train. Her phone vibrated with a text message. Morgan looked at the message and rolled her eyes. Brian would not stop with his stupid “Good Morning beautiful,” text messages. It was so lame. They had two dates and they were terrible. They went to some neighborhood bar and ended up running into Brian’s cousins and they were all primitives. They were ugly too.  Brian was hot but he was too nice. Morgan wrote, “Thanks, Good morning too xoxo”.

She did a double flip of her hair, once to the left and then once to the right. She rolled her eyes again and figured since Brian was hot she’d keep him around for a little while. He did have a pretty nice new car, even if it was a Kia. Morgan texted Christie, “Ugh, Hot Brian is too nice OMG”.

Morgan lowered her phone and continued to twirl her hair with her left index finger. If she had some gum to chew on she would have looked like the out of patience waitress in a diner scene from a clichéd black and white Roger Corman movie.  What was taking Christie so long to respond? Christie was such a bitch.

The twirling left index finger was moving faster through the long tendrils of Morgan’s beautiful hair. Her hair flipped and flopped and twisted over her finger as she weaved it back and forth.  Morgan was thinking about how long this stupid train ride was every day and how she wished she had her own personal driver.  Commuting was dumb and for poor people.  Her left index finger seized up and she stopped twirling. Her hair pulled on her finger and Morgan pulled back.

“OW,” she cried out, “What the hell?”

Her hair latched on and started to envelop her hand. Morgan pulled harder and she felt her beautiful hair tearing from her scalp.

“Aaaahhhhh,” she yelled.

The man next to her looked at her and his mouth dropped open.

“What are you looking at,” scolded Morgan.

The man rose from his seat and started backing away from Morgan down the train aisle. The other people across the aisle also gasped and started to move away from her.  

Morgan pulled at her hand again but it was stuck. She thought that maybe her $2500 ring she got from Steve might have gotten caught in her hair. It was a gorgeous ring but after she got it she didn’t think she needed Steve anymore. Plus he always wanted to cuddle and that was so not cool.  Morgan pulled again but something pulled back and dragged her arm up toward her head.

She banged her skull on the window as the hair pulled. She dropped her cell phone and started pulling with her right arm. Her phone vibrated as it dropped to the ground with a response from Christie, “Brain is too good for you. I don’t want you to come to my wedding.”

Morgan struggled to pull her arm free from her hair, but she wouldn’t ask for any help. She kept her face twisted in a confident snarl. As she imagined all confident and strong, liberated woman should look when confronted with adversity. She pulled again but it hurt so much. Her right hand was now stuck in her hair too. She couldn’t get either hand free. She saw her hair start moving down her arms, and then it was covering her eyes. She tried to blow the hair out of her face but it was already down over her chin.

Morgan started thinking about her next Salon appointment and the complaint she was going to make about that hair stylist, Amanda, that bitch had no idea what she was doing.

Her pretty brown hair curled around Morgan’s neck and began moving down the length of her body. Morgan tried to peek through her thick hair but everything was getting dark and she was having a very hard time breathing. She felt mad that the new boots she ordered on-line wouldn’t have a chance to be matched up with her new Kate Hudson Yoga pants.  She felt someone touching her and she tried to scream. How dare someone try and put their hands on her while she was vulnerable. It was probably that pervert that was sitting next to her. Nice try guy.

She coughed and felt the air leaving her body as her hair tightened its grip on her throat. Her hands didn’t feel right. She thought they were probably broken. Yet she hoped that her nails weren’t chipped. The hair grew over her whole body and then tightened in a boa constrictor death smothering. Morgan tried to kick, to flail, and twist, but she was immobilized. She let out a last annoyed sigh and rolled her eyes, which kept rolling as her last breath was crushed out of her.

The train passengers filed quickly off the train when it pulled into the station, yelling for a Conductor.  When the conductor arrived and boarded the train car he found Morgan, dead, eyes rolled back, purple marks around her neck, bones broken and flattened, but her hair was perfect. Just perfect.