The Light at the End of the Tunnel

THE GREEN LIGHT

The Long Sleep

I was plucking my ear hair. Things were going swimmingly. And then I started plucking out my nasal hair.

Unfortunately, I have very little hair growing out of my head which has resulted in many hurtful jibes over my teenage years. I did have a shock of bright ginger hair albeit quite fine, and then I started losing it, slowly but surely. I couldn’t understand it. My comb did not show much evidence of hair loss. Neither did the sink after a shampoo. So how on earth was my scalp starting to show through when I was still at school.

It was at the 5th year school dance that my thinning pate hit home. One of the school’s bullies swaggered up to me and exclaimed in a loud, sarcastic voice, in front of the girl I was attempting to chat up, “Now then baldy!” I gave up my attempt and sidled off to the toilet mirror to scrutinise my hair (that was before school mirrors got smashed). Sure enough, through the semi-translucent locks, I could detect flakes of skin lining my dry scalp. I felt sick.

The years rolled on by and in my later teens I suffered more abuse from condescending lads with Beatles-style hair, even though I tried to disguise it with a pathetic short cut fringe that blew around in the slightest of breeze. By the time I’d reached my 20’s I was well bald but with long hair at the back.

I did a spell working as a teacher in Jamaica after qualifying at a northern university and when there I even got some shout outs from the locals. These insults were not too bad, as I found them more amusing than hurtful. One garage attendant guy that I regularly whooshed past on my bike, always greeted me with the same toothy smile and a friendly wave. My long bald hair would stream out behind me like a flag on a pirate ship as he bellowed, “Hey bald Rasta!”

After my Ja stint, I became more confident and sported the brightly coloured outfits of an extrovert. I always wore a hat, not to compensate for my lack of follicles or baldy embarrassment but to keep extreme weather from my exposed scalp – it was extremely sunny in the Caribbean.

The hats did help in the moulding of my character as they became my trademark, which was great as friends that used to travel worldwide would bring back an ethnic cap for a pressy. One of my favourites was the one brought back from the Himalayan mountains of Tibet by a friend who had circled the globe many times and who was a very spiritual soul.

The hat seemed to have an aura of calm and peace whenever I wore it. I fancied that it emitted an inner glow but of course that was all in my imagination.

Life seems so unjust when there is a lack of hair growth where you want it and an abundance of it in all the places you don’t want it to. Ears and nose to name but two.

I hadn’t been feeling too well lately, especially after last night's session with a couple of pals the night before. I felt like death warmed up, so trying to increase my wellbeing, I moved on to the bathroom, washed my face in cold water, and decided to tidy myself up a bit.

I was wearing the Tibetan hat when I started to pluck my nasal hair. It did cause me to wince (the plucking), as well as my eyes to water but it was a strangely pleasurable pain. I had to take my glasses off as they fogged up in the bathroom and so, combined with my watery eyes, my vision was a little on the cloudy side. I had just finished tidying my ear holes and set away plucking out the wayward follicles sprouting out of my nostrils when I thought I saw a greenish light at the end of the tunnel so to speak. As I dragged a few more hairs from the voids, the glow from my nasal cavities seemed to increase. “Weird!”, I thought, wincing with every yank of the tweezer. Concentrating on the nasal grottos, I pulled out more of the unwanted frizz. The green light increased in luminosity as my thoughts increased in curiosity. My peripheral vision encompassed the bathroom suite, the tiles, sink and the mirror I was gazing into. These objects seemed to shrink in size and importance and liquify into floating vapour as the green light drew me into my own skull.

My subconsciousness became my only reality as the world I knew disappeared into those mysterious caverns. In and down I fell, tumbling and rotating in a not unpleasant way as the warmth of the glow wrapped me in a womblike blanket of serenity. Past memories and consciousness fizzed out like a spent sparkler.

How long I remained in that condition I do not know as time had no meaning. It could have been seconds, or it could have been years, decades, centuries, an eternity. I personally didn’t give a toss.

But then one day (if time in that cave existed) I felt a change coming on. Tickly tingles spread through my being like electrical charges on a battery terminal. The light around me seemed to fluctuate and pulse in a rhythm I’d not felt before. And then I experienced myself moving. All around me currents of bubbles and streamy particles moved past me, increasing in speed as the green light decreased in strength. My visual perception appeared to be radiating outwards. On and on I travelled. I was experiencing emotions that had long laid dormant. Feelings of anxiety and uncertainty washed over me as did the contents I was surrounded by.

Then the light went out. I felt I was still there in the dark but where I could not even guess. Like being in a long black tunnel I was moving intrinsically forward. I could see a dim light glowing through the lacuna in the direction of my movement.

Trying to calm my panic, I concentrated on breathing – a skill that had been denied me for the eternity that I was encapsulated in my womblike state. The light became brighter as I hurtled forward. It was not the green light that I had previously experienced but a glowing yellow that changed into more of a harsh blue/white.

When my forward movement eventually decreased to zero, I felt a giant force surround my being and pull at me. The light became an explosion of electrons and blinded me in its power. The chord that bonded me to the other word was cut.

I suddenly felt like I had a body with limbs again. My world turned upside down. I felt like I was dangling by my feet, and what I vaguely remembered as being my backside, received a mighty thwack on it. I was so shocked I let out a primeval scream that shocked me even more. I heard a distant voice saying, “It’s a boy and he looks very healthy. Well done young lady”.

And that was the last I remember of anything.

Word count 1208