the-modern-typewriter

@moderntypewriter.bsky.social

39 Followers 10 Following

Writer. Lover of villains, monsters, magic, vampires, romance, fairytales and (most of all) stories.

It started with hair. I have my mother’s hair. It is silky and fine. Hair that seems to take mere minutes to knot, snarling and tangled, at the back of my head. As tight as a fisted up scream. If it were given the chance, it is hair that would race dark along my legs, curl beneath my arms, prowl relentless even upon my chin and in dappled spots along my neck. We do not give it the chance. My mother is a vanguard armed with combs, scissors, razors and wax. I never see her hands empty. Never see them without something sharp. Every night after I turn ten she picks and plucks, fusses and burns, snips and tugs. We try out every strategic plan of attack that she can think of. I squint up at the full fluorescent roundness of the bathroom light as she inspects my face for perfect symmetry. My eyebrows are always the last job. The finishing touch. My eyes always inevitably start to sting and well. “It’s okay,” she tells me; part tenderness, part terror and part thin-lipped impatience. “It’s supposed to hurt! Being a woman hurts. You’ll get so used to it that you stop noticing, love.” She’s wrong. I always notice. But when I see the other girls wrinkle their noses and laugh behind their hands at the hair on Shannon Finchley’s legs during swim class, I stop complaining. I learn to do it. She is pleased. So, all in all, it is not a complete surprise when she immediately goes and buys a new shaving kit the first time I transform into a wolf.