Heaven and Hell
Amidst the steel-and-glass interior, tufts of hair lay incongruously on the floor, an organic reminder of the base nature of our bodies and the very enterprise that was at work, driven by our vanity and ever untamable bodies.
I waited for his / her arrival. It could have been either sex, but I was going to pay thirty three dollars for this, and I was prepared to wait. Soon the air bristled and she emerged. Hair held back with a purple clip, she wore capris and a T-shirt. Immediately, there was a darkening. Fatigue and tension were heavy in the air.
In a tone all too familiar she asked in Mandarin how I wanted my hair cut. It was a business-like tone made all too saccharine by an undercurrent of irritation..
“My hair sticks out at the sides,” I said.
“That’s the way it is, I can’t do anything about it.”
She seemed to scoff at my half-baked Mandarin as though that would somehow improve the situation. There was profound impatience in that voice, and she clearly wished she were elsewhere. Brandishing her scissors like a weapon, she snipped viciously away. From the man at the next chair, I sensed a palpable apprehension, only a shade less disturbed than my own. I wanted out. I felt the ball of anger in my gut growing.
The Hell she was /we were in was contagious. She was on a downward spiral that was gyrating out of control into a pit of despair. I closed my eyes. I could only pray and try to feel sorry for her. When the trauma was over, I paid and left without a rinse. (I was going home.)
Later I remembered another face, perhaps a heavenly one.
Lunchtime at the cafe brought the usual bustle. Perfunctory eating was the order du jour. Mechanically, people ate to the rhythm of some persistent pop song, leaving behind bowls and plates and the stench of whispered gossip.
I had seen her the day before. Her face was framed by a white veil and her clothes seemed white. I almost did not notice her apron, common to all employees. She cast a limpid net around her, and when you were caught in it, time stood still. In that split second just before she collected my plate, I felt a sense of calm. Then the gracious smile, and that voice, like warm milk.
“May I collect your plate Sir?”
The specifics did not matter anymore. What her job was, where we were, the polite epithet. This was Kindness, pure and simple.
“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.” John Milton