It was an unusually clouded day, a mist lulling in the air around the nearly deserted dock. A little boy, possibly around six or seven, picking his way through nets and weeds, and exploring various barrels filled with fish and barnacles, is enjoying his rare opportunity to be outside. His little raven curls are bouncing up and down, nearly reaching his shoulders and full of bracken, but he didn't care, he was just enjoying the air.
His father stood close by and chuckled at his funny son, getting in things he shouldn't. The two men behind him looked at the child disapprovingly over his shoulder.
"Edward, you letchur son run around lookin like a little girl. It's unnatural."
"I thought he was a girl just a second ago." his friend piped in.
Edward gave his son another glance. He did resemble a girl a trifle…
"I bet it's that hair a his. Makes im look feminine" the first man sneered.
Edward was torn apart by the thought. He'd seen his son's hair as a noble mark all his life, and never would've dreamed otherwise. Why, he himself had long hair! No one said he looked like a lady! However, being the practical man he is, Edward saw the other side of things. Lance had come home many a time complaining about the other children laughing at him, pulling his hair, and the ever common mistake of a teacher putting him in the group of girls whenever the genders happened to split. That decided it, Edward had to come to a hard decision, and he could only hope he'd made the right choice.
The day grew later and the two journeyed home. Upon opening the door, the excited little Lance tromped up the stairs, little curls bouncing on every step. His father looked on at him, tears of sadness welling in his eyes.
A few minutes pass, and the boy is called down again. He comes back, little curls excited, jumping with joy at every step. Edward however, shows little joy, as he stands behind a chair, cold and melancholy.
"Sit down" he says. No emotions.
Lance obeys, and sits in the chair, stiff. Edward wraps him in a smock, his hands mechanical, going with the movements. He moves over to a nearby counter, fiddling with what's there waiting. Lance looks over his shoulder to see what his father was doing. Edward turns back around, his instruments in hand. Scissors and an electric razor.
Edward hadn't gone far, and had been close enough to detain the boy when he went ballistic. Seeing his struggle was lost, Lance begins to cry. Edward was softly weeping himself, hearing the boy's distress. His son's wails perfectly illustrated his inward struggle.
"Why?" Lance asks through tears.
"I want to help you…"
And so he begins. Protests ring from the chair as the scissors glide through. Curly raven locks hit the floor, dead. Edward continues steadily along, trying to ignore his child's screams, but with each one he dies a bit inside, just as the number of curls on the ground increase. After a while he's numb to the situation, and methodically removed inch by inch. Neither of them could feel the inner pain anymore, the room became silent. Just the lonely snip of the scissors.
Thirty minutes is what it took. Thirty minutes. Hair littered the ground around the little boy's feet. He stared at it like a lost friend while his father cleaned up his neck. When he finished, he held a mirror down to the young man's face, letting him see his new hair style. After gazing in shock for a minute, Lance knocked the mirror away, and ran up the stairs, out of his father's site.
The next day, Lance walked to school, head down. The wind blew and it froze his newly bare neck. As he reached the door, his teacher happened to be standing there.
"I'm sorry little boy, but I don't think you're in this class…"
He looked up, about to cry.
"It's me."
Embarrassed at her little mix up, and surprised at his new look, the teacher looked a way and let him in without another word. The children were all giggling at each other, throwing poorly crafted paper airplanes, and being rowdy, and then they noticed him. The room went completely silent, every little eye on the boy that had just walked in. His little raven curls were gone, all but one on the back of his neck. He called it Mercy.
The children began to whisper.
"Is that Lance?"
"What happened to his head?"
"Wow, I can barely recognize him!"
He couldn't stand it, all the attention on him. It wasn't the usual attention. The girl behind him who usually pulled his hair back, examining it, just stared at him, burning her eyes onto his bare neck. As they waited to eat, everyone just whispered, their own little conversations all seeming to come in as one all about the same subject. Him.
He didn't speak to anyone.
After he reached home, he found his father at the door, and he ran in his arms and cried. He didn't care how angry he was. He'd always love his father. Stricken with emotion, Edward cried to, and through his tears he said, with the most sincerity in his voice as possible: "I'll never do it again."
And he kept his promise.
It's years later now. Lance is a teenager, almost a grown man. His hair had grown back completely, even past hat it had been. His curls bounced around again, his bang lightly hanging in his face. He looked out the window into the star-lit night sky.
"I hope you can see me now dad. I wonder if I look even more like mom from up there."
And of course, he did, as Edward looked down at him from his bird's eye view.