Nose hair

With slow, careful motions he entered into the process of scraping off the left half of his magnificient four-year-old moustache. He found it as difficult and painful as pulling nosehair out by the roots.

He checked himself in the mirror; he needed a nosehair trim.

I could hear each nosehair flicker and respond

She took her long fingernails and pinched his nosehairs as if she were playing, then, as if inspired, she pulled them as hard as she could, ripping them out of his nose.

Bitch,’ she says again, then carefully snips at the nostrils, her hand shaking. ‘Long nosehairs,’ she wails, ‘are so unbecoming. So unbecoming.’