On the face of it

Setting the table for dinner, Harry noticed the salt shaker had
pepper mixed in with it. Harry was a curious sort, and, strange as it
may seem to others, it got Harry thinking. 'Is that what I’d look
like if I grew facial hair?’

And so he set himself a task to grow a beard in a week, maybe
two. See, Harry wore a nine o’clock shadow even on days when he
did shave, so a beard couldn’t be that hard a task, surely.

Day One – Sat 19th Sept, 2015

It was Saturday morning. A whole weekend was at his disposal
to do with as he wanted. After all, what did Harry have to lose?
He’d recently broken up with his girlfriend, so now was the perfect
time. Otherwise he’d have had to take into account the notindecent
request to shave twice daily to ensure facial hair was at a
minimum for those intimate moments.

Day Two

Harry awoke startled. His hands went immediately to his
face. It was a reaction that served to wipe away the ‘sleepy men’
from the night’s sleep. They then shifted to the cheeks and the
chin, quite a routine exercise he was barely aware of. Until this
morning. Was there something growing on his cheeks, his chin? It
felt like a forest on his face. He’d forgotten about ‘the growth’.
Looking in the mirror upon getting out of bed, he noticed silvery
whiskers glistening back at him. The salt seemed to be mixed in
with the pepper.

“Just as I thought,” he said out loud, but quietly, to the face
glaring back at him from his own reflection in the glass.

Day Three

Dressing for work that morning, Harry was convinced he was
not going through some mid-life crisis. Oh no! If that were the
case, he would have bought himself a Harley-Davidson, a black
leather jacket with skull and crossbones on the back, and joined a
bikie’s club like the Hell’s Angels. The smile that looked back at
him from the mirror told him he had nothing to worry about in that
regard. Besides, he still thought of himself as youthful, with a
spring in his step.

The only thing old about him was his name.

It was business as usual throughout the morning and the
afternoon. Later he was told by one of his colleagues that they had
discussed ‘it’ among themselves, making personal assessments
about his facial appearance, giving his beard a score from one to
ten. The average score was an eight. But it could well have been
his colleague was just ‘pulling his chain’, so to speak. Harry was
one to always doubt compliments such as these.

Day Four

Tammy came into Harry’s office with a big smile on her face.
Finally a comment from a colleague.

“You should wear a pink, blue or grey shirt,” were her exact
words. “Those colours go well with a grey beard.”

Harry had a wardrobe full of coloured shirts. Tammy had told
him what he wanted to hear. After all, almost every day, Harry
would wear a pink, blue or grey shirt to work, never white. He had
a rule against white shirts. Too business-like. Didn’t go well
without a tie.

Harry checked himself for a moment. He knew the story of
Narcissus, who’d leaned too far over the river in order to see his
own reflection that he’d fallen in and drowned. Harry wasn’t going
to let this happen to him. He was a good swimmer, so he wouldn’t
drown, but the analogy was not lost on him.

Day Eight – Sat 26th Sept, 2015

It was Saturday again. Harry had survived a week. His ‘forest’
had been upgraded to a Category 2 national park. But unlike his
beard, which had begun to take on a life of its own, his patience
was wearing thin. He’d been reminded of the times many years
ago when, riding in the back seat of the family car, on his way to
his family’s summer holiday at a caravan park on the north coast,
he’d said to his Dad, “Are we there yet?”

“Not yet, son, but not far to go now.”

Half an hour later he’d ask again, this time in haste.

“Are we there yet?”

“Close to it, son. Sit tight and we’ll be there before you know it.
Trust me.”

That summer, Harry was bitten by a bluebottle. He lost all his
energy and slept for days to recover from the bite.

Today it wasn’t a bluebottle but a beard that was affecting his
mood, his manner with his staff, and his home life too. He didn’t
like being morose, it wasn’t in his nature. He was by all accounts a
positive-thinking person, full of hope for the future. But the beard
made him feel like an ageing professor when most days he felt
more like a youthful, if mature-aged, student.

Could facial ‘fungus’ really have that kind of effect on
someone? Or did Harry have more in common with Narcissus than
he’d like to believe? Either way, he knew a return to the ‘old
Harry’, the young, vibrant, energetic Harry, was just days away.

Day Nine

Harry drove up the driveway only to see his friend, Grace,
waiting by the front door.

“Where have you been?”

Harry thought for a moment before answering. He’d shaven his
beard off that morning so was back to being clean-shaven again.
He was feeling free, alive. His answer replicated his emotion.
“I was lost, but now I’m found.”

Grace was puzzled by this, but Harry knew full well what he
meant.

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Postscript: And by the way, Harry never did return to that
caravan park, just as he’s never likely to return to the bearded
version of his true self.