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New Style

/ Liz H-H / 14 Comments

Simple line, scissors cutting three down-waving lines

From Jenne Gray and C.E. Ayr’s photo prompt, The Unicorn Challenge (11/17/23). No more than 250 words in length. Otherwise, let your creative flag fly!

Odd had told her the barber shop was three blocks over from the warehouse they were squatting in. It wasn’t that they didn’t have money. They just didn’t want to use it for nonessentials. When he’d seen the ragged job she’d done cutting her hair, he’d decided: a proper clean up was essential. Odd always had the final say, so here she was, ambling down the street in the early hours.  Continue reading →

Dreamtime Travel

/ Liz H-H / 3 Comments

Steaming coffee mug

The coffee is good today. Michaela must have set up the brewer, after a thorough wash of all the parts that even the Mom and Pop shops seem to need to have for a decent cup, at high traffic volume. I sashay over to a single table in the corner. The table has one chair and a padded bench seat that extends from one end of the wall to the windows opposite. I prefer the bench because I sit here several times a week to watch the customers wander in, sit or hurry out, all versions of my past and future selves filing through. Continue reading →

Cutting Ties and Mudslides

/ Liz H-H / 18 Comments

Billy burst through the front door of the barbershop, sliding across the checkered floor and into an empty barber chair. He twirled twice and stopped.

Emil leaned back in the other chair, barber’s cape rustling over his sagging paunch.

Leon raised his shears from Emil’s thinning pate, “How can I help, Billy?” He didn’t really want to know, but he was a businessman.

“Dahlia’s gone and told me she wants another semester in Germany,” Billy buried his face in his hands. “It’s like she doesn’t want to get married!” Continue reading →