The Brow Code: Demands of the Face

It started like any other Tuesday: drab, uninspired, and permeated by the faint scent of wet laundry and existential despair. I awoke to the dulcet tones of my neighbor's emotional support rooster, who had taken it upon himself to scream directly into my air vent every morning at 6:02 a.m. sharp. I had half a mind to call Animal Control, but last time I did, the rooster sent me a strongly worded letter signed "Yours Disrespectfully, Greg."

I swung my legs off the bed and trod directly onto a Lego, which I hadn’t seen in three years and suspect was placed there by a vengeful spirit or perhaps Greg the rooster in disguise.

Undeterred and only moderately limping, I shuffled to the bathroom, my reflection waiting for me like a concerned older sibling. That’s when it happened.

I blinked.

Twice.

Then leaned forward until my nose smudged the mirror.

They were gone.

Not faded. Not thinned. Not overplucked in a sleep-deprived haze. No, my eyebrows were gone.

In their place, a yellow Post-it note glared at me from the center of my forehead. Written in small, neat cursive was:

"We quit. Find new eyebrows. - The Eyebrows."

I screamed. Not a heroic scream, but the high-pitched kind usually reserved for startled goats or people discovering their ex is dating a model-turned-neuroscientist.

There was a knock at the door. I opened it a crack to see my neighbor Mrs. Covington peeking in with binoculars and a mug of hot cider.

"Everything alright, dear? Sounded like you were being murdered by bees."

"I'm fine," I said, shielding my forehead. "Just, uh, facial bees."

She nodded solemnly, as if she'd encountered this before, and wandered off muttering about peppermint oil and revenge.

Panicking, I tried to make sense of my situation. Eyebrows don’t just up and leave. They are not employees. They don’t unionize. They don’t leave notes.

And yet, here we were.

I tried drawing them back on. First with eyeliner. Then with a Sharpie. Then with my niece’s glitter glue pen. Each attempt was worse than the last. I looked like a deranged puppet. I looked like I had been in a fight with a raccoon and lost.

Still, I had a job to get to. I work at Quirkstream, a trendy startup that makes customized soundtracks for people’s daily lives—you know, "personal theme music for your walk to work" or "epic orchestration for conquering a grocery store." My current project was scoring a 72-year-old retired dentist’s yoga class.

With a deep breath and my glitter-glue brows shimmering in protest, I braved the outside world.

The reactions were immediate.

The barista at Perkatory Coffee snorted oat milk out her nose when I ordered my regular triple shot decaf mocha with room for regret. The man in line behind me asked if I was part of an avant-garde theatre troupe. A child pointed and said, “Mommy, why does that man's forehead have sparkles like a unicorn's butt?”

At work, things got worse.

"Interesting look," said Janet from HR, raising a brow that she, notably, still had.

"They quit," I explained.

She blinked. "Who did?"

"My eyebrows."

"Ah," she said, and jotted something down in her ever-present clipboard. I suspect it was the phrase 'mental health resources packet: URGENT.'

I made it to my desk, dodging camera phones and snickers. My cubicle-mate, Daniel, leaned over our shared divider.

"Did you lose a bet, or is this a performance art thing?"

"Neither. They left. I have documentation."

I showed him the Post-it note. He squinted at it.

"Neat handwriting," he murmured. "Very passive-aggressive."

The day crawled on. I spent more time on Google than I did working, searching phrases like "eyebrows self-removal symptoms," "facial hair rebellion support groups," and "how to reason with runaway follicles."

The internet was unhelpful. One forum suggested smearing honey on your forehead to lure them back. Another claimed eyebrows were a government conspiracy and I was lucky to be rid of them.

By lunch, I was desperate. I skipped the breakroom and ducked into the supply closet, where I attempted a séance using a scented candle, a Ouija board made from keyboard keys, and a tube of expired ChapStick.

"Oh spirits of symmetry," I intoned, waving the candle. "Return to me my brows. Let my face once again have character."

The janitor opened the door mid-ritual. We locked eyes. He silently closed the door again.

I knew what I had to do.

I took an early leave (citing "sudden follicular abandonment") and went to the only person I could think of who might help: my Aunt Myrtle.

Aunt Myrtle was a former circus psychic who now sold essential oils and shouted unsolicited advice to joggers. Her hair was periwinkle and her eyebrows were so arched they looked constantly shocked.

"They quit?" she said, after hearing my tale.

"Yes. There was a note."

"Hmm. Classic case. Happened to a bearded man in Saskatchewan in the '80s. His mustache joined the circus."

She rummaged in a drawer and pulled out a mason jar labeled 'Confidence + Sass Blend', unscrewed the lid, and smeared some across my forehead.

"There. That should help lure them back."

"Is this essential oil?"

"It’s mostly pesto."

I thanked her and went home, head glistening with basil and hope. That night, I left out a saucer of wax strips and a small mirror. I played empowering music. I whispered affirmations into the void.

And still... nothing.

The next morning, I awoke with a start.

I felt something. A tickle above each eye. I sprinted to the mirror.

They were back.

Fluffier. Angrier. Stylishly shaped.

And perched between them, a new note:

"We're back. But we have demands. 1) Weekly conditioning. 2) No more glitter pens. 3) More expressions. You never emote. Get it together."

I nodded solemnly. I had been humbled by my own face.

And from that day forth, I lived in harmony with my eyebrows. I conditioned them. I gave them dramatic moments. I even took them to a salon once, where they received compliments and a small round of applause.

But I always sleep with one eye open.

Because you never know when your eyebrows might unionize again.

Or worse... go on strike.