Mom came into the kitchen and studied me with shadowed eyes. Within two hours, the shine of my hair had been replaced by a deadness, a gray lifelessness, which prevailed over both the detached and sagging strands of hair as well as the healthier group whose roots as yet remained firmly implanted in their polluted ground. The invisible reaper moved stealthily through its crop, mowing random stalks with a keen-edged blade and littering the malignant, gray harvest aimlessly and chaotically above their once-healthy roots. The sheared strands slid down my head, and converged into a heavily inter-woven mass of hair at the nape of my neck. It was matted and thatched, the dead clogged with the dead and dying. It was impossible to restore order with a comb; the only hope rested in the jaws of a pair of scissors. Mom took the clotted mass in her hands and clipped the length to my shoulders, discarding the ashen-gold into the waste basket. "Hair couldn't be dead," I thought,"but I have just witnessed it die." Why else would hair suddenly lose its shine and lapse into a gray-sheened, death-like shadow? Cut hair reflected life; my hair had been poisoned, robbed of its shine. It was different than the curl pressed between the pages of my childhood memories; no book wanted these lifeless strands, nor would any memory desire to recall them. After supper Mom and I dashed to the shopping center to look for an appropriate wig. I wore a handkerchief about my head in an attempt to conceal my rapidly balding scalp, for baldness was not as easily accepted in a girl as in a boy; some men shaved their heads at the onslaught of summer heat; while others did likewise for sports. When we arrived at the wig department, it was obvious that we had waited too long. I selected several styles that appealed to me, and removed my scarf, to sit self-consciously before the mirror as the customers filed past. Some glanced curiously at me, wondering about my noticeable sparsity of hair; I now had sympathetically few hairs left, and my part revealed an inch-wide swath of white skin. Donning a wig, I studied myself with amusement. The wig had so much hair. I never had that much hair. I lifted it off, replacing it quickly with another and adjusting the new one back and forth. I wanted something which was as modest and natural as possible. Why did they all have so much hair? This one stood two inches off my head; it felt like a hat. I tried another. Not bad. How about a blond one? Well, it was worth a chuckle or two. I finally decided on a shoulder length wig which sported bangs and a slight curl. It was promptly boxed while I replaced my handkerchief around my head. I wasn't bald... yet. I'd have plenty of time to wear the wig. It was a relief to escape the peopled store. The wig would prove to be my ally and my foe in the months ahead, being both a concealment of the truth and an object of mockery and bewilderment.