Special Threads

Special Threads 

by 

Joshua Adkins 

He combed his hair by executive fiat. The front succumbed to his will, being while the back portions curled in and out. Stylistic failure looming, he leisurely bend over tying his shoelaces leaving no room for error. He laboriously moved his melancholy the way of his lavatory. 

He lived in penury and his poverty wore on his disposition. He was inversely popular to his whereabouts, and in the morning he slumped, while by the nighttime he was the significant example of posture. While slumped he would advise himself on the day’s matters 

The most handsome woman lived across the hallway from him, and every morning he would act like he would likely speak to her the next time they came across one another. He said the only words yesterday that he had said to her in two years. 

“Hello,” that is all he said to her, and it was a reciprocation. He knows she thought he didn’t approve of her somehow. He never could even engage a response in all those two years despite his practicing in the mirror. He told himself it was his hair. If only he had a good head of hair, then he would have the confidence to respond but this was a blatant lie. When he spoke to himself, he often lied. He wondered what exactly she thought of him and what she hated about him. For he knew she hated him. Despite his cordial subtle antics, he knew she disapproved of his being. Was it just his looks or his lack of charisma? Whatever it was, he knew it existed and he knew he was playing catch up. He just knew. 

This morning when he looked himself in the mirror, his act was different. There was something authentic about himself. Something outrageously different happened. He had spoken, and she seemed to like it.   

He artfully picked up his toothpaste with his right hand and his toothbrush with his left. He intentionally wielded items dyslexic to his handedness. He opined to himself silently this time, “If only I could incorporate my left hand into things, then I could change everything. I could be suave.” 

He imagined a life in which he could speak to women. He had fantastical notions of being a famous actor with people fawning over his every word. Maybe if he could incorporate some of what he saw into his reality, he could begin to live a life.  

He vowelized the next thoughts out loud, “You are charismatic. Only you wouldn’t say charismatic. You will say cool.” 

He heard her outside his door, and his voyeurism stopped his conversation. His surveillance continued for several seconds until he noticed her shut her front door, while this nosiness remained his verbiage on silent. He thought of life and what it would be if he had a partner. 

He said his formalities to himself, “Marcus just say hello once more as you did, but then engage in one more word.” 

All this muffled at the will of his toothpaste slushing around his orifice. An unintended bodily amount of the menthol sewage placated itself on his persons. His crusty stain of cementing white goo hindered him from further speculation, then he choose to alleviate the attempt to a further time.  

A superfluous amount of mouthwash was poured into his orifice, and he gargled, but his gargle was so inelegant that even for one of man’s most unbecoming acts, he still stood out as an outlier. He had a distinct gargle not unlike his laughter, and like laughter he beat the average for uncouthness. Nothing he did was average. His gargle reminded his of grade school and Jennie Smith, who was the first woman to say no to him. 

His bathroom was part feminine and appeared sexually dimorphic but was actually androgynous. Any visitor, as long as they broke in and didn’t know him from Adam would think a couple lived there. A barrage of acne treatment and a variety of masks he used to try and appear more like those movie stars, but this would never change his appearance, and he used fragrances to upheave his manly smell, while allowing for his only to mix the two together into a conglomeration of nuanced disgustingness. It seemed everything he attempted to alleviate his poor appearance only exacerbated his problem exponentially. Clipping his meandering, gothic toenails only resulted in an ingrown abnormality. Now his feet smelled, looked bad and incorporated a limp into his step that was just below the need for a cane.  

A nuclear option insisted upon a replication of his insides. Something vapid must be done, but a previous nightmare he left the top of his head looking like a monstrosity. Maybe if he went to a professional, something metaphysical would enact a softer outcome. One in which he could be not proud of but which he could live with. 

He decided to rearrange his hairs to a decapitation of appearance and slowly operated his way to the closet to change his accident and forever put toothpaste from his mind. He needed a barber he liked, one that would take his uncanny, unrefined existentialism into something just about its unpolished nature, but how could he tell the character of this tradesman. Would he interview, or no, he would find a busy establishment, one in which he could listen of the man before he put his instruments to the appendages that he held. 

He thought of his plights and surrendered his choice to another selection, a blind one and closed his eyes as he perfunctorily swiped through his closet only to, “ini, mini, mini, mo,” his way to a lottery. Behold, before he released his eyes from their lids, he felt the uniqueness of his choice.  

Maybe the publicity of his cloth would bring him from his shell. But could he speak to her in its grasp or would this event be entirely artificial. He thought of the prejudices of stylists and knew they could take out his or their eccentricity on his hair. Maybe they would think him weird and for a weird man a weird haircut.  

“Hmm,” as he spoke out loud to himself, with the ambiguous gesticulation to match. He weighed both hands up and down as if only the dangling of his arms would count for his decision. As the left arm crept upward, he realized if he were to change everything about himself, he needed to wear this shirt.  

He tried to sexily unbutton each as if it were a drama class and he failed once again, embarrassing himself so that his fingers undulations ripened his disingenuous smoothness, and he failed once more. 

Calming the atmosphere, he buttoned his shirt this time aiming properly and every button he managed. Walking unusually to his door he swiftly turned its knob only to collapse his confidence before fulling exiting his apartments extremities.  

He never liked public transportation, but the government wouldn’t pay for a vehicle, so he usually closed his mind’s eye and somewhat managed his sojourns. But this time he saw her. Where she had been he couldn’t tell, but as if she had been waiting at the bus stop all this time only for him, the two met.  

The floral had weaponized the situation, and she became charismatically sheepish but laconically loquacious and she told him, “I love that shirt.” 

He bashfully sat down unable to speak while standing, and told her of his naked response,” Yes” is all he could muster, but he hadn’t gone backwards, he did speak. He accidentally spoke to himself for her to hear, but unlike in his lonely presence this didn’t calm matters, and he felt even worse. 

“It’s okay Marcus she is only a human being,” as he mumbled, silently praying she never heard him or took him for mildly neurotic, not socially obtuse.  

She shocked his soul as she reverberated louder than he his sentiment, “I’m just a human, huh.” 

His jaw dropped and like a beam of sunlight on deep sea Tubeworms; her smile twice powered the situation. Marcus did his best job and acted a smile, crookedly moving the corners of his mouth upward while awkwardly showing his teeth.  

“Where did you get that shirt?” She smiles even louder. I know it wasn’t procured here in the city, it has too much character.” 

His heart pounded and his mind raced. What if she still hates me? I mean how do I know what this doll is thinking? He patted his hair like one nervously patting a dog only to speak to himself again,” I wonder if she hates me?” 

Again, she heard him and smiled so greatly that ostensibly, everyone on the block mimicked Marcus and fell victim to her charisma. They all seemed to stop as they knew her. For he knew they were looking, even though they kept on in their day, walking and talking.  

He spotted a man angrily on the telephone dispossessing of something and while Marcus pretended he was back in the mirror, he left the place he was and entrapped his constitution in a web of superficiality. He tried to spot his hands angrily back and forth but sensually seeing as he couldn’t get mad at her, but it’s all he could do was mimic his surroundings. 

He pressed on and before he could not say anything, she looked at him with pity and wondered out loud herself, “Why would I hate you?” 

He breathed in and out heavily and screamed at the top of his lungs trying to muster up some anger, “I don’t know!” 

She Started dying laughing and tried to hide her humorous angst. Something funny had happened to her, she missed him, and she didn’t know why. He stood right there, but her heart ached. She realized that in her laughter he had become so small that she lost any part of him that were.  

He sprinted away swiftly. He stumbled across a men’s wear housing and forgot of his anxiety while sifting his mind through the possibilities. His shirt had worked, almost barely though. 

A man in his place wears a camouflage, one he sometimes feels sufficient. But to all those who stay in it naturally, they can tell. As he rolls around from shirt to shirt, a manager notices his virginity and attempts to calm him.  

“Is this your first time here? 

He decides to through his disguise in the floor and responds, “Yes.” 

“Well, what can I help you with.” 

Something tells him he can speak the truth to this man, and before he releases his words, he eyes the man in that way only two can do when no one else is watching. It is as to lie to one another, that a secret can be kept between a pair. 

After this trust Marcus tells him, “Look, I don’t need to look good. I don’t even need to feel good. Maybe. Maybe that. But I’m not sure. I just want to be able to speak. You may think I’m speaking to you now, but I’m not really. I mean I’m really close. I’m really close. But to another I can only utter out single words a few moments at a time, and it’s excruciating.” 

He gives Marcus that look of understanding, bread from a common experience.  

“I know just what you mean. I’ve seen this before. We Taylor fit to people. I know exactly what you need.” 

He looked to the cloth, hoping something could help.  

“This is it. This is the one. I own an exact copy. Then he takes his shirt off and shows his proof of ownership on his body. I wear it everyday. Look at me. It works. It really works. I could not before speak to anyone, much less a woman. That’s the idea that got me here. I know for you it’s about a woman, yes a woman. Look can you feel it. Forget the dressing room. Just do it and forget who you used to be. You can speak. You can speak.” 

The item was something in between pastel purple and its bright cousin. A color so unique that the Hawaiian shirt was pressed for acknowledging in its presence. The cloth was so soft that every movement of his hand was determined for another, and he couldn't quit, either looking of gracing it with his hand..  

He put it on.  

A force occupied him, and suddenly the voice in his head became calm and easy.  

He looked Marcus in the eye and the man said, “Practice.”.  

    Mark took to making his mind match his thoughts and suddenly he could speak. Really speak. He felt like one of those charismatic movie stars he loves so deeply. 

    “Woo. Whoo, “as he takes his hands and rubs them together, thinking of what he looks like and knows a haircut will make him even better. “I feel good. What’s your name. I believe we have met before in a previous life.” All the studying he has done lifelong comes out fluidly now. “Could you imagine living in a caste system. In India. I feel like I was reborn into a different cast. We will try not to get too cocky as he plays his charisma. I’m outgoing now. I’m it. I’m the new real me.”  

    The man laughs and shows his, as they in a nicely manner complement each other. 

He tells him, “You deserve it. Trust me I can tell.” 

    They approach the counter, and he used his card getting the last little of his abstract money to a donation. One to himself. He leaves. But he just leaves. Not thinking of the customer that walked in. Not thinking of what he thought about him or what he thought about him and if he knows what he is thinking about him. He just walked. 

     He felt cool! 

Chapter Two 

Walking he retarded his old self, embarking on a novelty that gave him triumphant spirit as he rose to the occasion of walking the sidewalk, everything he did was for the first time. He ordered everyone to him, but he ignored them. People envied him, calmness past and women subtly notice his enchantment. Everything he were to say took no chance, because he knew what would happen.  

    As he entered the barber shop, things appeared brighter, and he sits while he notices the procedure the barber was using and wielded it to a conversation, “You know…that’s a skill and how exactly does one learn to cut hair. Who are the sad victims taking to be the first ones to let a man cut his hair.” 

He replies, “We use dummy heads.” 

Marcus tells him back, “Genius…. how many did you practice on. I mean before you went to the real thing.” 

“You know not that many. Turns out I’m a natural.” 

Marcus sits down. Barbers used to scare him. He felt so comfortable and had so much faith and confidence. Then it happened.  

Marcus says loud but secretively, “Excuse me I’m going to take this shirt off.” He folds and places the item near his sight.  

The first syllable spoken to this man, he folded once again. 

To Marcus, “What do you want?” 

Marcus simply sits there, and shocked by the stark contrast, thinking he himself had changed, could barely say,” Shaved on the sides, short on the top.” 

He couldn’t get hair on his shirt though, and it was only a barber. 

The stylist asked, “Where are you from?” 

It had actually worked a little bit on him because he started to think cool like, and it was, “Just around the way.” 

He actually said shakily, “I don’t know.” 

Brandishing his clippers after a formidable stripe was placed on the side of his head, he tried to muster anything, looking for the man he now know is inside somewhere, “What’s your name?” 

The barber says Ethan and replies, “What is your name?” 

He says, “Marcus,” stuttering and trying to come with anything else. 

When the barber finishes and he slides on the shirt, he then walks to his apartment.  

Chapter Three

He delicately praised the shirt while touring it to his torso like he was playing a game of operation. He needed to show the shirt it’s respect.

As he turns around, not a second after the silky like fabric felt hedonistic to his senses, he displayed its power to his barber, “How did you do this. I look amazing. Let me help you out," as he pulls the money from his pocket as he sees men do on the television. He hands the last $50, a bill to the stylist.  

The stylist responded to his bravado, seeing some of what Marcus was now afraid of, “I don’t know if I can accept this. I mean it’s twice the payment of the service itself.” 

He tells him cool and suave, “Don’t worry. I have more. I like you and love this haircut.” (Holding back talking of his good looks trying to control the shirt)  

The weather started in carnage, and like the hail began a foot above him there were no warning as it should, dropping speedily but distant from the clouds. There were no warning by when he looked up, they were blackened as if grey didn’t exist. He made a choice and it was for the good. He wouldn’t be loud, only confident, and he apathetically fiend for his neighbor, knowing he could now speak.  

As he opened the door to his apartment she stood there, able for him to see. She was more beautiful than he had ever seen her, but she was now more normalized, paradoxically. He asked her, “Would you like to go out with me?” She held his hand and they walked into the street. She talked and he talked, and they walked through the city effortlessly. He finally was who he was as noted to be.