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The Shearing

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By Morgan Kinnally.

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Myles passes me my knitted hat. He already has his on.

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We didn’t used to need to wear a hat to bed, but since The Shearing, everyone’s got to keep their head warm. Nobody’s got long hair anymore.

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But I’m used to it. I don’t even miss mine anymore.

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And it certainly makes getting out of the house in the morning easier if I don’t have hair to blow dry and style. Myles says I’m prettier this way anyhow.

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We snuggle up and turn on our TV with free streaming from the previous renter’s account. We’re going to watch The Shearing event in Cleveland.

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I mean, who doesn’t watch The Shearing broadcasts?

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Everyone learned early on, you just can’t fight back. And it isn’t so bad, considering.

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Our government finally stopped trying to defend itself and things have been smooth sailing ever since.

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At first, the U.S. government launched nukes into space at their massive ships circling our orbit, but that didn’t seem to do anything.

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Their technology is far superior and their appetite for human hair is insatiable. Plus, none of the other countries, allies or not, wanted to get involved.

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You just let it happen. Go with the flow. File in. Zip, zip, zip. You’re shaved, good to go on your way. See you in about a year.

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I can’t understand why the government and, particularly, the rich are so bent out of shape about it. You can’t change it. Can’t buy your way out of it.

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You just gotta accept it and try to live your life. The poor folks like us have been living like that even before the alien ships started hovering over major U.S.

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cities.

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The first time I saw the extraterrestrials, the first time a lot of people saw them, we started laughing. They weren’t like what we imagined.

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No little green men with laser guns like the movies. They were iridescent, blobby things, but icky and phlemmy looking.

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Two years ago, when I had pneumonia, I kept coughing up these giant phlegmy boogies that were neon yellowish-green.

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They were like that, but fifteen feet tall and flickering a rainbow of colors.

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Plus, the way they shoot radioactive acid goop from any part of their body helped humanity's decision to fall in line.

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For my first Shearing, we were rounded up into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in these big cattle cages. We waited so long that a few people wet themselves.

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Standing there, I thought about the old testament story of Sampson and how Delia cut off his locks of power.

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I thought about the Hindu religious tradition of men shaving their heads when a family member dies. And I perhaps dwelled a little too long on the Aztecs and their tonalli.

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They believed the crown of their heads and hair contained their soul. Would I feel any different after this?

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Aliens turn on their machine hanging above us in the cattle cage; all our hair stands up on end.

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Then about fifty of them come through with their little jelly T-Rex arms and cordless clippers and shave away.

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The hair is vacuumed up and into some kind of giant container I can see across the track. Shearing us with some super-sized Flowbee.

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I made the joke but no one laughed. I saw some Phlemmies on the outside of the gate slouched over, looking tired. Then I saw it.

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In one of their stumpy hands is a glass bowl of hair.

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He’s bent over it and with his finger he heats the bowl up with some of the radioactive acid stuff. I see the hair sizzle in the bowl.

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Then the Phlemmy takes a big sniff and falls back on the ground.

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Scientists think human hair is their food source, but to me, it looked like they were getting high, hitting that hair bowl like a pro.

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Now, the baldos had a little bit of a different experience.

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My friend Steve always shaved his, purposefully trying to keep that intimidating bald look–he was also pretty jacked, arms for days. Myles doesn’t like it when we hang out.

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But when the aliens found him and some of the other baldo folks, the aliens screamed something awful that gave everyone within five block radius tinnitus.

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For the baldos, they were all rounded up too.

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A film crew at some college snuck in and filmed the extraterrestrials polishing the all people’s bald heads with some blue liquid goopy stuff, then some aliens each went around and slurped

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it off with their purple tongues.

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On the video, some of the guys in there were crying.

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But after they licked their heads, the aliens’ eyes got big, their pupils, if that’s what they were, got real wide. They made kind of, ahhhhh, noises too.

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The scientists might explain it away as food sourcing, but I equate their experience to huffing glue.

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Now, I don’t think about it. I just go in, wait like a sheep, get sheared and go home. That constant smell of burnt hair makes me sick.

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I’m relieved they should be moving on soon. Cincinnati is their next stop. That means we got at least eight months, maybe more, to grow out our hair.

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My hair might be thinning from the stress of the last few years, but not too noticeably. I still always have hair for The Shearing.

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And some people think we’ve all been a little more stressed out from the extraterrestrials’ presence the last few years.

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But the problem isn’t the aliens, it's the economy. Myles and I are overdue on the rent and got our first eviction notice today.

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It looks like we’ve pushed our squatters rights as far as they can go.

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Though the government blames the high food prices and unaffordable rent and utilities on the aliens, I don’t and neither does Myles or even Steve.

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I think humanity adapted alright to these new imperialists. Just got to go along, I guess.

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The aliens don’t seem to want anything else from us, just the hair on top of our heads. Plus, the aliens, in exchange for volunteering our hair, they give us strawberries.

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My favorite. Okay, fine.

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It’s probably not volunteering when they shoot that radioactive acid stuff in your face if you don’t comply, but at least we get something out of this deal.

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The bald folks get tongued, and they leave with cantaloupes. It’s win-win.

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So when the wealthy elites complain their rights are being trampled by the alien invaders, when they ask us why we don’t give our sons to battle these alien oppressors, all I

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can think is what did you guys ever give us?

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Because of the aliens, no one ever has a vitamin C deficiency. How about that for social welfare?

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Tonight, I’m busy deciding whether to eat Ramen, or skip it all together. The hunger pains will go away once I fall asleep.

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Plus, I’m already so comfy here in bed with Myles.

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So yeah, I enjoy watching the bald billionaires standing there in the pens getting scoped up and licked. The baldo treatment is broadcasted now too.

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They’re usually cursing something fierce, but they got to do it too. And the wealthy elites with hair, get sheared just like the rest of us.

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At least, in the aliens’ eyes (if they have eyes), all people really are equal. If one of these extraterrestrials ever runs for office, I would volunteer for their campaign, gladly.

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Free strawberries and melons? They got my vote.