The Simple Reality

Really, Really Good Friends

The man sitting in a the leather chair rested his legs on the metal bar, half of him patient and the other ready to finish what he'd come to do. His shoulders were covered swiftly with a black cape which draped all the way down to his legs and covered even his arms. His huff was soft as he waited on his barber to move around him and prepare the tools that'd be used. The gentleman pulled off the baseball cap from Björn's head, then had briefly paused as he pondered what was displayed before him. Quite unexpected.

"Oh, don't say it. I know," Björn sighed. "It doesn't look right at all. Before you ask, I needed a haircut and she said she could and for whatever reason I agreed. I thought some good would come of it."

"You sure that this barber cuts hair... I mean, human hair?" the man asked jokingly.

"You could say I was the guinea pig." Björn tilted his head, looking at it in the light of day. "It was her first experience." Then again, he reflected, it wasn't the first time she cut his hair. She had cut his bangs in the 70s a few times. And Peppa was given a little trim around the corner of his eyes two nights ago. It didn't look bad, until Björn was the one to be found as her latest victim. "Kinda."

"Don't worry," the barber laughed. "I'll fix it, no problem. Seen so much worse. Now you're here, we'll shave ten years off you." The man squeezed at his shoulders playfully, and Björn had a light smile he'd given back. Sure, he thought. Whatever it took to get him in shape enough to face the next two weeks. He had busy days revolving around everything Pippi and the last thing he needed was to worry about his hair. The opening was due to be the first of July and there was a lot on his plate to do before then. As he sat in the black leather seat, his mind began to wander into a mental checklist of what his next thing to do would be.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, the love of his life was in the center of her home and seated on the couch with two boxes of photographs. Something had crossed her mind at random, bringing her to lose herself in its content. The boxes were not at all small, in fact they weighed enough to have Ester carry it for her instead. Her firm belief she was young and strong still was proven wrong when she found she could not carry out this simple task.

Agnetha shuffled through photographs, things that by now felt old and ancient to her. Family photos, memories of her and her sister, their childhood friends, Björn, and random pieces through the years. Some things made her laugh, much of it equally made her nostalgic.

"What were you wearing?" she was asked.

"Let me see," Agnetha leaned over. "Ah," she smirked. "Look how great your grandmother looked."

"Yes, but why were you wearing that?" Ester laughed, staring at the younger version of her grandmother dressed in layers of 70s clothes, things that hadn't matched a bit. White shoes and thick black socks, pants and a coat. Oh, a dress too? What really tied the look together finely were her large sunglasses.

"I don't know, what's wrong with it?" The young woman dropped her arm and her jaw fell too. She listened to Agnetha go on. "How do we not have these in albums? It's crazy we haven't organized them! We should take better care of them."

"An album?" repeated Ester. "We have one, maybe two. Let me get them. Aren't they here? Sure we can find a place for the pictur—" She heard a plop and looked over her shoulder to see the elder woman dumping the entire box on the table in front of her. "Or you can just drop them. That works too."

"Suddenly I feel the urge to organize them all. Maybe by the year." She picked up an image of her very early years. "Like this... this was in..." she frowned in thought, turning the picture over to see if there was a date written. There wasn't and she had no idea what year exactly the image was. It could have been 1957 or it could have been 1956. "Perhaps we better sort by decade," she mumbled to herself.