The Barbershop Closet

Start your story with one character making a vow they never would have made the year before.

Never in my life did I expect to be behind the wheel of a spaceship, 70 lightyears from Earth, vowing to never again step foot into a barbershop closet. And it all began with a bad hair day.

Picture a warm summer’s day, ice cream dripping off the freckled chins of girls, boys screams chasing one another through grass, a feeling of joy in the air. That afternoon, I decided my hair was too long.

It stuck out in jagged peaks, tangled too easily, was a nightmare to comb out every morning. A crumpled 20 in hand, I set off for a summer cut. I had no idea what was in store for me.

“Mornin’ Susanna.” Ms. Lurane called from the back. “What’ll be for ya?”

“Quick cut in the back, short and cute,” I said, sliding into the swivel chair. “like mama’s hair, way back in the day.”

“You sure ‘bout that hun?” She asked, wiping her scissors across her apron. 

“Never surer,” I said, chewing that free gum from the front of the store.

“Right on. It’ll be done for ya in a jiffy. Just gotta nab somethin’ from the back.”

But then in the silence of the empty shop, I had a strange sensation. Something was watching me through the crack in the closet door.

I could never leave well enough alone. I had to investigate. What I found lead me on the adventure of a lifetime. The closet held… barbering supplies. And also a portal to another dimension.

There are very few experiences akin to being sucked through an interdimensional wormhole. A long drop on a rollercoaster maybe. Or the day after Halloween, when you’ve gorged on sweets and feel pretty sick, but also kinda good. I guess the closest comparison would be dying, and then un-dying just after. But I’d yet to experience the latter, so it was up to my imagination at that point.

Once my body finished reassembling itself, I found myself inside a similar closet to the one I’d just exited. But something was off. A slight hint in the air, a small twinge of unfamiliarity. Cautiously, I stepped out. I was in an airport.

At least, it looked like an airport. It had tall white walls, smooth white floors, blaring white lights, and strange decorations nobody seemed to understand. And it was full of people.

There were all sorts here. They were speaking, I could tell they were speaking, but they weren't words I knew. Foreigners, I reasoned. But the more I looked, the more I was confused.

Like this strangely tall fellow. He towered above the crowd with his peculiar shaped head. And his skin was green. There was a handful of leathery folk with tiny wings fluttering wildly as they hovered about.

The place was big. The more I walked, the bigger it got. Huge halls, wide food courts, hundreds of shuttles. The maps didn’t help. The announcements didn’t either. The few words I recognized said things like:

“Calling all Zorpians to passage Zix.”

But the windows bothered me most. Too dark to see anything. Just pitch black speckled with white dots.

Eventually, I understood it was not an airport, but a space station. An intergalactic space station, to be precise. And somewhere in that sprawling space, a group of dimension-hopping police was looking for a stowaway from dimension X.

Zorp Stellact Tarkan III was inspecting a water fountain. It appeared to be working properly, and this was a great surprise to Zorp. The water fountains on the Intergalactia 704 were always broken in some way or another. But not this one. It flowed as smooth as Zorp could expect from a water fountain.

“Zorp! We got a lead.” Zeak called from behind a map. 

“What is it, Zeak?”

“Well, I’m seeing a lot of warped activity in sector Zix. Could be some cross-dim comm’s on the fritz, but I bet it’s our humanoid.”

“That’s possible,” Zorp thought aloud. “That’d explain a lot about this mission...” he trailed off, lost in thought.

“ZEAK!” He suddenly cried. “Oh my gosh, Zeak, the Dimension Hopper 2000! Did we leave it on?”

“We!?” Exclaimed Zeak. “It’s your job to disable it!”

“Fine, sure, but listen, this might be our-”

“You’re!”

“My fault. Fine. But we gotta stop this Zeak. King Plop... If this gets back to us ...”

“Zooorp,” Zeak groaned. “Fine. Let’s go. To Zix!”

“Sheek zoap mork parth.” They said.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand you,” I replied.

“Sheek zoap mork parth!” They repeated.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re saying.” 

The alien, short and purple, wrapped his tentacle arm around my wrist. He dragged me across the station, pulling me to a wide doorway with large letters across the top. Maybe it was the same phrase translated over and over. One of the lines was English. GATEWAY ZIX, PLANET ZOHFORE, DELAYED FIFTEEN KIPITONS.

“Where are you taking me?”.

“Sheek zoap mork parth.”.

I sighed, and they led me through the doorway, down a long corridor, and into a wide, open space filled with several similar aliens. They all looked up.

“Shile moorank takal?” One of them asked.

“Monk. Zeef molo-ton.” The one holding my arm replied.

They lead me to a pedestal in the center of the room, with a familiar set of controls on top. It took a minute until I realized how I knew them. It was an N16 Gaming controller.

“What’s this doing here?” I asked, forgetting the aliens couldn’t understand me. 

“That’s the ship’s controls.” Someone said behind me. I whipped around, to see a new group of aliens behind me. It was the tall, lean, green-skinned one with three eyes and a happy smile that had spoken to me. His badge said Zorp. Next to him was a squat little man with a thick head covered in 47 eyes. His badge said Zeak, and he looked very frustrated.

“Zorp! What part of Sneak Attack don’t you understand!?” He yelled.

“But she had a question!”

“Nevermind.” He grumbled. Then, to me “You! You’re under arrest for illegal dimension-hopping!”

My instincts yelled RUN but Zorp grabbed the back of my shirt.

“Not so fast little lady!” I squirmed as Zeak cuffed my wrists.

As we walked off the ship, I heard Zorp mumbling to himself.

“Poor little guys, they’ll probably never get home.”

“What?” I asked.

“Well, they need a pilot opposable thumbs. Can’t get home on their own.”

“Is that why they brought me there?”

“Appears so.” He said.

As mama always said, a little convincing goes a long way.

“Wait!” I yelled, and they paused to look at me. “Let me help them! Then you can take me to space jail, or whatever.”

Zorp looked at Zeak. Zeak looked at Zorp. Zorp nodded. Zeak shook his head. Zorp nodded more vigorously. Zeak shook his head violently.

“Alright!” Zorp cried. Zeak slapped his head with his palm.

Behind the wheel, err, controller of the Star Voyager Zix, I looked out into the cosmos, Zorp and Zeak behind me, watching every move intently. A pod of purple aliens spoke quietly amongst themselves. I wondered what Randle Bay was doing without me, and how I would get back. And that’s when I vowed to myself never to step foot into a barbershop’s closet again.