Something was buzzing on the table next to the bed, Sofia lifted her head off the bed and reached over to pick up phone. There were some messages on it from a few friends, two from work and one from a number she did not recognize. She raised her hand and ran it over her smooth scalp which almost burned with the tightness of her skin. Her cool hand felt good against its glassy baldness.
"Oh dear God" her face drawn into a pout, "what the hell do I do now" she asked herself as she got up and threw her robe over her shoulders. She looked at her phone, and just didn't want to talk to any of her friends right now, that was out. The messages from work she should listen to, but just couldn't deal with it right now. The unidentified message was weird and she was curious about it so she opened it and hit play...
"Sofia...Sofia...you have done so well." Her eyes were wide, who was this person? "I like the new look, hmmmm, but you missed some." Click...then silence, only Sofia sat staring at the floor on the edge of her bed for nearly an hour listening to that silence. Was it really silence? She couldn't move, she wanted to move, she fought against the steal vise that held her glued in that position. Finally she was able to move and promptly fell forward onto the floor, unable to stop herself. Her face smacked into the rug, her arms not working.
"Oh fucking hell!" She was bleeding again only from her nose as she slowly got things working and moved to the bathroom to grab some tissue. Sofia's nose was bleeding profusely as she held the tissue and tipped her head back. Why couldn't she stop her fall? It like her arms weren't even there. Finally after a short while the bleeding stopped but the bridge of her nose was quite swollen, maybe even broken. "Great!" she yelled at the grotesque creature in the mirror. She leaned in to look at her nose, her face just inches from the mirror.
"You missed some..." She heard the voice but it was not through her ears, but in her head. She leaned back from the mirror and then back in again, raising her eyebrows to see if her nose really was broken. She looked at the silvery white arches that hung gracefully over her eyes. They had been meticulously manicured and plucked, into perfect accents to her face. "You missed some..." the voice again as her hand reached for one of the razors in the tub. She brought the razor to her forehead and suddenly dropped it into the sink.
"Noooo!" Sofia ran from the bathroom and onto her bed, her robe falling off in between. "I'm really losing my mind, shit, I am..." She was panicked " Now I'm hearing voices!" She remembered in her Psych class talking about schizophrenics and how they heard voices telling them to do things. "Oh my God, I'm a schizo" She buried her head in her pillow and screamed at the top of her lungs until her throat began to hurt.
"Okay Sofia, let's get a grip here." She got up and began to think about getting out of this mess. One thing is for sure, she needed a wig desperately. She looked in her closet for a scarf that she could put over her head and checked her bank balance to see where she was there. "Okay, a little makeup and I could pass for normal." The scarf hid her baldness as she glared at herself in the bathroom mirror. Slowly she began to apply some cover and then eye shadow, carefully following under her brows. Reaching down to the sink, she picked up the razor and shaved off her left eyebrow. "What the..." She looked in shock at the bare skin now framing her eye. "Why can't I control these urges?" She was shaking as she began to remove her remaining brow.
"Why!" She ripped the scarf off her head and the almost alien face looked back in amusement, although she was anything but amused. She ran her fingers of her now hairless brows and then back over her glassy head, which reflected the light above the sink like a chrome bumper. "Holy shit!" She screamed "You missed some!" Stomping "Not any more fucker!" She yelled at the ceiling. Then a really creepy thought came over her. That message, how could he like her look. "Unless he can see me!" She began tearing around her apartment looking up and down, for a camera, anything. She reasoned that she hadn't been out of her bedroom or bathroom while all this was going on. "It must be in there." She tore into the bedroom and bathroom, making a terrific mess, but never found anything.
Sofia threw herself down on her sofa, replacing the scarf on her head. "Okay, lets do this." She looked on her phone for a wig store, but the closest one was at the mall, across town. Throwing her wallet and her keys into her purse, she made her way down to the street, intending to take the bus but then realizing that her car was in the parking lot. "Where the hell did that come from." She didn't remember driving it home the night before, so she thought it was still missing. She remembered the ride into work on the bus the day before and the humiliations she suffered at the hands of that young man. She unlocked the car and got in, and it seemed like she was just there not too long ago. She saw some strands of long blonde hair on the floor, and a tear crept into the corner of her eye.
The drive to mall was through the city, and she kept herself focused on what she was about to do. Anyone that saw her would simply think that she had cancer or something but she tried not to think about explaining anything to anyone. Sofia was just a couple of blocks from the mall when she heard the pop of a siren behind her and the lights were going too. She looked down at her speedometer and she was well under 30mph. She pulled over and parked and grabbed her wallet out of her purse, but the cop never came to the car. She looked behind her again and there was another cruiser, right next to the other.
"Get out of the car with your hands in front of you and lay down on the ground face down!" The megaphone screeched.
"What the hell?" Sofia was shocked and scared, but did as the cops demanded. The next thing she knew her hands were cuffed behind her back and she was hauled to feet by them, which really hurt. Then it hit her. She never told the police that the car wasn't stolen, they thought she was the car thief.
"Grab her purse Tom, its on the seat." The cop grabbed her bag and wallet and began thumbing through everything. During all the roughness, Sofia's scarf slipped off and started to blow away down the street. He held up the license to her totally hairless head. "Did the report say anything about the victim's purse being stolen?" The cop asked.
"Nope, just the car." The other cop held her arms firmly behind her.
"This is my car, I forgot to call and report that I got it back." Sofia sobbed.
"So you're saying this is your car?" The cop came closer. "What's your name?"
"Sofia Fazio." She stammered
"What's your address?"
