I Miss The World

by Violet LeVoit

“So the first night I go back to my room and there’s a note to dress in comfortable clothes tomorrow, and oh yeah, no big deal, but we ask all the men to shave, and by the way, it’s optional, but shaving your eyebrows for men and women would be helpful too. And I’m like, that’s my first clue that something’s up. Maybe I should just go home. But it’s late and I’m tired and I know that nobody can force me to shave my eyebrows and the kale sausage bonfire cult doesn’t scare me and I’m going to bed. “So I just go to sleep, and the next morning someone slides a schedule of events under my door. So I go to breakfast, and you guessed it, smoothies. And all the guys have shaved, so I don’t recognize the ones who yesterday had mustaches or beards but today just look like pink scared babies. And you know it’s always the men with weak sunken chins who grow a beard. So I’m snickering a little bit at how chastened they look now, with their little chins slumping into their necks. And yeah, a handful of fanatics shaved their eyebrows. And they look freaky. You wouldn’t think something so benign could do that, but I know faces. Burn victim alien freaky. None of the instructors have shaved their eyebrows. So whatever’s happening, it’s not going to happen to them. That should have been my second clue.