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At first, the woman is a monster. The town is constantly on watch for the unfamiliar being, the men keep weapons in their back pockets and the woman keep their tongues sharp. Until she sings, as there is no more beautiful sound, and then the monster is a woman.
The golden hair, it carpets around her body from her head to her feet like a dress, hides herself. And so people draw to her like the light she gives off by concealing herself in darkness. Oh, beautiful, some have said to her fur of a body, and she laughs softly at their ineptitude, but this is muffled under the blanket of her being so only she hears.
Her voice carries through the valley, though: clear, strong and intoxicating. Everyone agrees it is perfect, almost a bird call. They stop what they are doing to listen, she is pure entertainment. Only a woman and not a monster because the people made it so. And the woman sings all day and all night, because her songs cover up her thoughts, thoughts of the unveiling.
She often thinks of this, how she would look, how people’s dreams would be shattered by her body. To do it would be to look at her unknown self. So she hides behind her lovely songs. And meanwhile the people wonder.
The ultimate mystery, one can only speculate as to the person underneath: her outfit, her shape, her age. And the woman wonders about the people around her that she does not see because she cannot use her eyes. Do they whisper soundlessly when she is away? Do they step away from her when she passes on the street to avoid touching her hair? Do they gossip only about her in the privacy of their houses? She fears that she knows the answer.
Sometimes people want to see her: Let us see your pretty face. And she gives her soft, scared laugh again and closes her eyes and opens her mouth to ward against the doubts crowding her mind.
One day it has to be done, the day the woman wants to see. She takes a knife from her undescribed kitchen and begins to saw the hair off. As it flies everywhere, piling up around the tiles, she marvels that it doesn’t hurt. It should. This dead thing than flies into a million pieces seems more her body than, say, her ear. Once, she cuts herself on the cheek in her haste, and the blood gets mixed in with her mane and mats it with the sticky redness of iron, the only color the woman has ever seen spreading and soaking up the golden forest of her hair. She does not feel the slash against her skin.
Still she keeps on with the knife, her arms straining with the effort to cut the hair, cut it away from her face. It seems that she will forever be struggling with the serrated kitchen knife that is supposed to cut meat, trying to penetrate the forest before her eyes. The hair is as coarse as rope, each strand sawed off seems like a ragged achievement as they all pile up around her feet. But soon forever is over. There are no more illusions to pierce or achievements to cut off from her brain, but her head is still weighted with ignored expectations. She closes her eyes to think.
The woman touches her hand to her face, her bleeding cheek. It is drying now, the blood caked on her face, and this sensation of skin on skin is a new one. Her knees shake. She must see!
Her eyes open, and there is shock. Light fills her vision, glorious sunshine. She can see nothing except white for a lifetime, and then that life is over and another one begins, and she is staring at a wall made of mirrors.
A ghostly pale body is reflected a million times against the wall, in a million little shards of feeling. The woman gasps. Her eyes are red little hearts, pulsing blood. Her eyelashes are little veins, blue against translucent skin. Her cheeks and forehead pump blood as well, coming down to meet the lungs on the bridge of her nose. Stunned, she touches these little breathing organisms, each one, filled with wonder. Is this her face, this strange wonder? How was this thing created? The cut on her cheek is forgotten, and the blood drips down her snow-white body, marking a startling red-brown trail down her miraculous white cotton clothes. Why is she wearing those? She stares at her garment strangely, lost in a stained reverie.
There is the singing sound of her doorbell, and she gets up from her sunken position on the floor amidst her broken shield to answer it in a daze. When the people outside the door, that is, the whole little valley, hear the woman’s footsteps but not her lovely voice, they step away. What could be wrong?
Everything and nothing, of course. The woman cowers before that silver doorknob that she has used but never seen. What parts of the unforgiving world might be out there?
The woman wants to hide, but knows she cannot do that anymore, because closing her eyes is closing her heart and she enjoys the silence of thought. So she opens the door.
The valley erupts in sound as every voice but the woman’s shrieks at her, at this vision of her face. Put your hair back, you . . . , they beg. But she just laughs as she always used to, the soft sound alien and grating to their ears. And the woman is a monster again, because the people have made it so. But the woman is not a monster, because the woman made it so. And the self-made woman walks away from this little town, where men and women are the monsters.
This woman knows that a story is over when monsters are unveiled, and she keeps her eyes open for songs to sing.
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