I lean my head back, feeling the top of the wooden chair press into the base of my skull. It wasn’t as hot as it had been during the day, but stickiness clung to me, leftover from a day of sweating. The cicadas don’t seem to mind the muggy evening air; encompassing me, their cacophony of buzzing, four walls of interwoven sound. Above me, the sky slowly shifts from a deep orange to a lilac. Or maybe the color was something equally ambiguous to name, like periwinkle.

Wisps of my hair drift by on the twilight breeze. My boyfriend stands behind me with clippers, slowly running them through my hair. 

I have always wanted to shave my head. Or, really, I wanted to do anything that made me feel invincible. And having less hair makes me feel just that. Like I have nothing left to hide, so there was nothing left to hurt.

If this were happening a year earlier, I wouldn’t be shaving it all off. I’d be leaving a strip down the middle. If I had ever gone to college, I probably would have gotten a Mohawk then. But I never went to college, so I never had the experience of letting loose and having nonsense hair. That’s what my mom would call it, ‘That kind of hair is for nonsense people, people without jobs.’ My hair started falling out a month ago, so it all had to go. 

The sun above me falls beneath the clouds, igniting them in fire. I close my eyes to the infant night, letting the cicada’s symphony and the mockingbird’s song wash over me.

I can feel his hands running over my head, checking to make sure no stray strands evaded the cheap stamped-metal blades of the clippers. He does it gently, but I can tell he’s curious. Hell, I’m curious. How will I feel now, walking around without hair? How will I look? Ill? Pathetic? Desperately crying out for attention? Powerful, I hope. The idea of having less to become stronger feels strange to me. A good strange. Like floating upside down in a pool. Something is wrong, but maybe it’s just my perspective changing.

When the mockingbirds cease their singing, I open my eyes, and find a few brave bats have taken flight. I watch them swooping through the air, trying to match their prey’s arcs and dips. The low humming of the clippers doesn’t seem to bother them, at least, any more than a car would have. 

The soft sound of paper wings beating makes me look up. Above me, and quickly dropping, comes a thing. A winged thing. As it lands on my bare knee, I realize it’s a moth: dusty white wings dipped in brown.

I once read a novel that described death as a butterfly, flitting from place to place. Sucking away the nectar of life. Fragile, yet unceasing. Maybe the author was wrong. Maybe death wasn’t a butterfly at all, but a moth. A moth drawn to the dying of the light.

I sit. And I wait. I close my eyes as I wait. I don’t know what I’m waiting for. Maybe I’m here waiting for my eyes to close with finality. For all this weight to drop away and for the pain to stop. 

The moth flutters its wings gently. I can’t see it, but I can feel it. I can feel the wind from its wings ever so gently cascade down my leg. 

“It looks like paper,” my boyfriend whispers.

If I could hold my breath, I would. But that had become harder and harder to do. 

I don’t know what I’m waiting for. A sign, maybe. I was told many people, people like me, began to see signs. Signs it was ending. Or signs to keep fighting.

But I’m done. Twenty-nine and already done. Albert Camus once said, and I’m paraphrasing, ‘Committing suicide is admitting life is too much.’ I wonder what he would say to me if I told him I was done fighting. Probably something in French I wouldn’t understand. 

The moth bats its wings again. This is it. I can feel it coming. I can feel all my attachment falling away. The wind seems to agree, and starts picking up; the breeze cold across my sweaty skin.

If I keep breathing, I won’t be scared. It’ll be over as long as I focus on breathing. 

One might think there’s no fear of dying when you’ve been given the expiration date pretty much down to the day. One would be wrong. 

I chalk it up to hope. Oh, sure, I know death will come one day. But maybe not. One day, I’ll do it. I’ll actually die. But maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe it was all a mistake. The doctor confused two patient’s charts. That happens, doesn’t it?

That large wave of panic that I have come to expect doesn’t arrive; it doesn’t crash upon my shores. Instead, I feel… happy. Was it happiness? 

I open my eyes. 

The lilac had finished its pilgrimage across the sky, floating fully away in the time my eyes were closed. The bats are out in full force, still enjoying the warm air of the ripening night. 

With a few mighty beats, the moth takes off, leaving behind a dust of pollen and my soul, still very much intact and still very much inside a body in pain.

“You okay?” my boyfriend asks.

“Yeah, why?” I ask.

“I finished the haircut ten minutes ago.” He holds up the clippers. “You’ve just been sitting here with your eyes closed.”

“Oh,” I say, standing up with his help. I take another look at the sky, barely lit in the furthest corners of the horizon. “Yeah, I’m okay. I’m ready.”

“For what?” he asks.

“For what comes next.”