hair spa
by Mugdhaa Ranade
the hair stylist—technician?—person holds up a section of my hair and talks about all the ways in which it is damaged. do you see this? he asks. i have taken off my glasses so all i see is a blur. i say, ah yes, i see what you mean. he then rattles off the benefits of the above-my-price-range hair spa. i nod along, thinking haha, no. at the end of his monologue, i say, how about i get the other one and see how my hair behaves for a month? he smiles, tight-lipped, and agrees. who can argue with the customer?
before the hair wash, i tell him, the pink dye i touched up my highlights with (three days ago) will bleed. he says, don’t worry, it’ll only fade a little. i frown and think, i was telling you not asking, but i let it go. the hair person doesn’t try to strike up a conversation, which i appreciate. i feel sleepy, but keep forcing myself to stay awake. i wonder if the hair person sees it as an achievement, a talent, making people fall asleep with his hands running through their hair. these are the odd questions i’d like to ask people, but propriety stops me every single time.
after the hair wash, the hair person leaves to get the products for the rest of the process. i text my mom about the price of the hair spa and keep the phone aside when the hair person returns. as we finally reach the head massage stage, i contain my excitement within my body. i once again combat the urge to fall asleep with a melee of thoughts.
when the hair person asks mid-massage, is the pressure alright for you? i think, no, crush my skull, drill your fingers through my cranium, massage the grooves of my cerebrum, straighten the unruly in my mind, squish my brain so hard, it explodes. i say, yeah, all good, thanks.
i check my phone; my mom says she doesn’t understand why i would waste my money on a hair spa when a haircut is what i need. i think, it’s my money, mom, i can do whatever. i text her: it’s just this one time. towards the tail-end of the massage, the hair person asks whether he can massage my shoulders. i say yes. it hurts. i wonder if it’s the knotted muscles or whether his technique is wrong; i wonder if he has to expend more energy to get to the muscles underneath the layer of fat. i wonder if he wishes i was thinner so his job would be easier.
the hair person puts my wet hair atop my head in a loose bun and gets the steam machine thingy. i think: wow, this is a final destination-esque accident waiting to happen. i wonder who’d inform my mother if my head were to blast open and spray brain chunks on the walls within minutes.
no horrifying steam machine accident happens. there’s static in my head while the hair person blow drys my dripping hair and straightens the strands despite having been instructed not to do so. i don’t have the heart to point it out.
at the end, i realize the back of my t-shirt is still wet. the chill of the ac is getting to me. i ask the hair person to run the blow dryer over the wet spot. he silently does so. the warmth of the blow dryer makes me think of the last time i hugged my dad, three months before he passed away, an impossible number of years ago. my eyes feel hot. that’s what i hate about grief the most; it’s not the missing, it’s the abrupt reminder that something is missing.
they make me buy a membership because the cost with and without the membership discount is the same. i don’t want the membership but i want to leave. so i nod along and pay for the service via debit card. outside the salon, my hair feels like plastic. i feel like my mom was right about the hair spa being a waste of money. i decide not to tell her.
at home, i run wet fingers through my hair and go to sleep. i dream of the sea i immersed my dad’s ashes in; i wake up with beach waves.
Photo of Mugdhaa Ranade
BIO: Mugdhaa Ranade is a dreamer+realist in The City of Dreams (and Harsh Reality), Mumbai, India. She writes because she knows nothing else, and nothing else knows her. Find her having an existential crisis online @swxchhxnd.