It was after glancing into her looking glass and happening upon her last brown hair that Lillian Foster found it. She had always considered herself pretty enough and as a youth hadn’t much time for the frivolities of keeping up with her skin and hair and nails. The three seemed in a constant struggle to revert back to their natural state. Lillian, as a humanitarian, found it only decent that they should do as they pleased. She had noticed very little additional felicity in they that managed to subdue these forces with success. She therefore decided it might be more beneficial to foster and maintain habits and dispositions that would be uninfluenced by the winds of time. She read a great deal, only drank water, and excelled in whatever she pursued. But as she saw the dark hair nestled amid the gleaming strands of silver she heard it whisper a cutting question.
“Where are they my sweet?”
The hair did not speak again, but it's split end was a forked tongue lying quietly as the question took root.
Lillian had been in the middle of her latest book, “Lectures on the Early History of Institutions” when the hair had asked its rude little question. Lillian had been far too busy getting on with things to ever think up such a question on her own. She had a lovely job as an editor, intelligent and supportive friends, and hobbies enough to stay busy for a good long while. But as she slowly slid the strand from scalp to tip she remembered the thought she had put away so long ago.
She hadn’t meant to lose the thought. What had really happened was that she had been cleaning for a very amusing dinner party one Friday evening some fifteen years ago. The thought was sitting on her coffee table and at the time had been quite out of fashion. She caught sight of it after clearing away some old magazines. She quickly put the thought in a tin and placed it at the top of her hall closet. She had had every intention of dealing with the thought. However the following morning right when she had been trying to recall where she had placed it, her sister called and invited her out to a flower show and a bit of lunch. They had gone for a tête-à-tête at The Rochester Club later that afternoon and wound up at the “Maison de Fleur” for a night of dancing, and by Sunday morning Lillian had quite forgotten all about the little thought.
As she closed her eyes and pictured her friends she realized that they had all possessed the thought as well, but hadn’t misplaced it. Beads of anxiety streamed down her neck. She walked towards her hallway closet and reached high into the back. At first she felt nothing but then the tip of her finger felt the cool of the tin. She grabbed it and walked towards her couch in the sitting room. She found the resolution to pop it open. A thin film of dust lined the lid and a small cloud floated for an instant. She reached into the tin and held the thought. As she examined it she became aware of the quiet of the apartment. She gasped and whispered “Oh!”
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