#57

The naked head can be read like a map. There are islands of sunspots, freckled cities, rivulets carved by time. Deforestation leaves the landscape smooth.

She first noticed it on the bus. A man sat in front of her. He had gray hair from his ears to his neck and a waxy salmon colored dome of skin starting where the hair stopped. The skin was pulled tight like a canvas, and it afforded her the pleasure of study and survey. Appreciating the individual lumps and lines and colors and dents, she admired the uniqueness of each head in a way she never had before.

And then she wondered, is this what monks do? Is this why they shave? Do they sit in silence and appreciate each other’s bald heads? Make atlases of each other for future journeymen? Record travelogues for posterity?

Yes, she decided. It could be.