Edward Kim

It’s always personal between the tweezers and him. His sweat pant legs rolled up two folds and his t-shirt with two slits worn over his nipples. He walks into the bathroom barely lifting his feet and turns on the lights, flinching as he does.

“Jesus Christ,” he says under his breath.

He looks at the tweezers, closes his eyes, wipes the crust away, and picks them up, clicking it twice for practice. Exhales. The arms of the tweezers make their way up his nose. He clamps down on several hairs and snaps his wrist. He wonders what would happen if he were to slip, hit his elbow on the counter and jam the tweezers up through his skull.

“Son-of-a-bitch!” he says.

His eyes water. Snot seeps out of his sinuses, his right leg comes up and falls back to linoleum not yet warmed by the sun. He opens his eyes, a bit wider now, and tilts his head back as he looks down his face at the mirror. Looking down at the tweezers he sees four lengthier nostril hairs stuck in their teeth. He’s reminded about the way he used to tear the legs off of daddy long-legs and throw them into the webs of spiders. Grabbing hairs off the tip, he dusts them off into the sink. The tweezers go back into his nose. He snaps. A strip of pain works its way from his nose to the back of his head.

“Son-of-a-! Why… why?” he says.

He repeats these steps until he can breathe clear, blowing his nose into the sink after he’s finished. He wipes the sweat off his brow and exhales again. His head begins to tingle. He thinks about Egyptian pharaohs having their brains pulled out through their noses. There is a pound on the door.

“Yeah,” he says without opening the door.

“Are you ok?” his roommate asks.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he says.

“What the hell are you doing in there?” his roommate asks.

“Nothing, just plucking my nose hairs,” he says.

“… What the hell would you do that for?” his roommate asks.

“It’s better this way,” he says.

“… Well, hurry up, I need the bathroom,” says his roommate.

He can feel his roommate still standing in the door way for a moment before he walks away.

After clearing his nostril passage in a satisfactory manner, he moves onto his eyebrows. They’ve been slowly making their way towards each other like two forces armed with spears, inevitable to meet. He plucks them away one by one, but he can’t quite get them even. Each snap keeps the forces at bay for another day, but how wide is too wide? He’s not quite sure when to stop. After a few more pulls, he finally gives up. He pauses to look at his face again. The sun is beginning to crease the windows and soften the linoleum. He looks out the window and squints, scratching his left nipple through the slit in his shirt. Feeling a few prickles, he turns his attention toward his nipples and examines them through the holes in his shirt.

“Very well, then,” he says to his nipples.

Carefully, he takes off his shirt. It appears as though the old Underground shirt will disintegrate if handled inappropriately. The once bright blue faded into a grey. The back of his shirt is damp and a thin layer of sweat remains on his skin. A cold chill hardens his nipples and the individual hairs stick out sharper.

“Hmm,” he says to himself, “that works.”

Another round of pounding raps the door.

“What the fuck, man!” says his roommate.

“Fuck off! I’ll be out in a minute,” he says.

Thanks to the cold chill, the nipple hairs pluck easier. He hardly flinches at all, except for when he accidentally pinches skin. The sun is dominating the window now, as well as the linoleum. He turns off the lights. Putting his foot in the sun, he examines his foot.

“Looks like a damn hobbit foot,” he says.

His nose continues to drip; he sniffs it up like a cokehead. He pulls down his pants and looks at the pubic hair sticking out from his crotch. He looks at the tweezers. Down again. His roommates pounds on the door again.

“I’m gonna be late, asshole!” says his roommate.

He looks at the door and back at the tweezers, down at his crotch.

“Yeah, fuck that,” he says.