The Hairband

 

A story by Thelma Mary Caroline

 

(Not to be confusing with the actress)

 

 

 

 

 

It was so normal.  Really, it was.  I was just at Dollar Hauler, looking for T V dinners.  There was a package of hair pony-o's, 100 for a dollar.  They were all colors, just like Joseph's coat.  Red and yellow and green and brown and scarlet and brown and okra and peach and violet ...

 

So I bought them.  Not because I needed them.  Because they were pretty.

 

I opened them as soon as I was outside  of the door, pulling my hair back with a gray one.  They weren't too thick, but not thin either.  My favorite kind.

 

I wonder where my ride is?

 

I turned to see a man dressed in an airy style, in vivid earth tones.  His pants were baggy, but had a tight waist.  Around his neck was a wooden bead necklace.  He was dirty and looked as though he hadn't showered in a year.

 

"Huh?"  I asked, thinking he was speaking to me.

 

"What?" he barked.  Pyscho.

 

After staring for a moment, I decided to walk away.  He was the psycho, not me.

 

As I walked down the street, I heard other strange comments.

 

I wonder if he's cheating on me?

 

I feel like everyone's just staring at my butt!  Is it my jeans?

 

Won't they just laugh when I show up with a gun?  They'll think it's real!

 

I wasn't dumb.  It quickly occured on T V shows and in books and stuff.  I was telepathic!  I had suddenly developed powers when I'd walked out the door!  (Well, of course not.  It must have been the hairband.  It had been magiced somehow -- maybe from a parallele earth!)

 

For hours I sat on a busy street corner listening to thoughts.  Some were funny, some were sad.  Many were angry and most didn't make any sense to me.

 

I took the hairband out before I left for work.  I didn't want to know what people might think of me.  I knew better.  Thoughts never meant anything.  People couldn't really control them.  Half the time they weren't aware of their own thinking.

 

So I don't know how it happened.  As I worked, I kept the hairband on my wrist.  I made plans to go to the mall -- Dracmoor Mall, in particular.  There would be lots of shoppers there, scrambling about while early Christmas shopping.

 

I figured that I could listen to the thoughts for hours -- that was harmless because I didn't know them and they didn't know me.  It wouldn't matter if I knew, no one would ever believe that I did.

 

The thoughts would, without a doubt, echo the beliefs of our socitey.  Maybe I could use what I learned to write the ultimate self help book, though give the information away, not sell it for more than it was worth.  To help people become the person they truelly wanted to be -- or at least happy with what they already were.  After all, the thoughts of self fulfilled people must be different than the thoughts of those.

 

Somehow the hair band went missing.  Missing into my co-worker's hair.  I watched as her eyes went wide.  She, too, seemed to quickly grasp what was going on.

 

I leaped to get it back.

 

No, I thought delibertly. Give it back to me!

 

"NO!" she said.  "Don't you understand what this could be used for?  How much money we could make?  People will think we're magic!  They won't know!"

 

But I did understand.  I understood, but she didn't.  You couldn't use things like that to make money.  That was dishonest.

 

And then I did something I'm ashamed of.  Not the actions so much as doing it in front of my flaberghasted workmates.  They had no idea what I was yelling about.

 

I reached over and yanked the band out of her hair.  Grabbing the scissors, I cut it into a thousand little pieces.

 

My co-workers stared on, and I offered a meger smile -- all I could manage.

 

"Just saving the world," said I.  "Again."