WINTER 2026, SHORT STORY, 1900 WORDS
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The river went nowhere. A fishing port at one end. Tendrils that snaked up to the highlands at the other. The coastline looked like a cup of spilt tea. As the road curled down to the provincial park, the asphalt being more of a suggestion than the definite article. He drove fast. Her hair blew across her face. She hadn’t said a word in miles.
He complained about the chip wagon. More as banter than as true grievance.
“What did you expect from a place called Gazoo’s?” she said.
“They only took cash,” he said. “You going to barter with some cod?”
She sipped on a can of Canada Dry.
“There’s no signal out here,” he said. “It’s been like two hours since we last saw a phone tree.”
“Why’d you start a conversation with that weirdo?” she asked. At Gazoo’s, they’d encountered an old woman with fine silver jewelry on her fingers.
“She made me laugh,” he said.
“You paid her a dollar for a wish,” she said.
“That’s what she was selling,” he said. “That’s what I bought.”
The sunbeams and shadows played off her sunglasses. They drove in silence.
“So, what…” she asked, eventually. “What did you wish for?”
He blushed. Embarrassed. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” he said.
She thought about it for a moment. “Fuck you,” she said.
The entrance to the park was just a log cabin and a sign. A ranger stacked kindling onto an ATV. The man got out and waved. “How ya doin’?” Justin said.
The ranger stopped and took off his work gloves. “Can’t complain.”
Justin tried his cell phone again, but there was still no reception. He put his phone away. “We have a reservation,” he said.
The ranger looked around. “Take any spot you like,” he said. “They’re all plenty good.” He scanned their full car. “Would you like some wood? Forecast calls for rain.”
Sarah got out. “Do you take credit cards?” she asked.
“Sorry, cash only,” the ranger said.
“Oh crap,” said Justin.
The ranger had figured as much. “Don’t sweat it,” he said. “Take some of the offcuts. It’ll keep you warm.”
Sarah moved a hair lock from her eyes. “Thank you,” she said. All that was great and good in people. It had been a while.
They drove up a peninsula. A backbone road. At the mouth, a white fishing boat was anchored. They heard loud clangs as machines unloaded the catch. The campsite smelled of cut grass. No one was there, except for a father and his two bickering kids. They were annoying. As they set up their tent, Sarah and Justin followed their example, and argued loudly.
Later, as they put out the rest of their sleeping gear, they didn’t speak.
She read an old paperback that she’d grabbed from a motel. He couldn’t stand being stuck in an enclosed nylon space. So he threw on a wetsuit, and left. She hated him, but she hated being alone more. So she fumbled with her neoprene and got her hair caught in the zipper.
“Wait,” she shouted. But he’d already disappeared down the trail.
She pushed through the red spruce trees. Pine needles scratched her face. He stood at the water’s edge. Dipping his toes in the water. “Water’s cold,” he said. A speedboat with a happy family shot past. Waving. Racing the setting sun.
She saw the trawler better now. It looked like a monument. Clanging. It had blue trim. The water was frigid. “Damn,” she said. Beneath the surface, a huge crab scuttled past her toes. She wasn’t surprised. She was numb. Justin put on his goggles and tried to find the crustacean’s hiding place.
The sun set as they climbed back to the campsite. They pulled off their wetsuits like selkies. Like second skins. They hadn’t bathed in days. But the cold made her hair smell new. She cried. She wasn’t sure why. “Oh come on,” Justin said. Again, he struggled with the tent fly. “Work, dammit.” He got it to work, then stepped out of the tent.
She changed by herself. She heard the family arguing at the other end of the campsite. She wished they knew how lucky they were.
There were no stars. It was cool and humid. Justin used the offcuts to light a fire.
They waited for the water to boil. He cut slices of baloney. “I wish we had some marshmallows,” he said.
“And graham crackers and chocolate,” she said. “Everyone loves s’mores.”
“Why is there an H in Graham?” he asked. “When everyone says gram.” This was him at his most pedantic.
“I think it’s someone’s name,” she said.
He added the noodles to the boiling water. “Yeah, but the name has a ha to it,” he said.
She threw a twig into the fire. “It’s kids,” she said. “They pronounce it with a mouth full of marshmallow.” She mimicked a mouth full of goo. “Grammmm.”
He put the lid on the pot. “I think we should pronounce the H. In honor of Mr. Graham and his delicious crackers.”
She felt tired. “Write someone a letter,” she said. They ate their noodles in silence. She picked a hair out of her bowl. It rained. He doused the flames. She hid the dirty dishes in the trunk. They didn’t want another visit from a bear. They’d deal with the dishes in the morning.
He still struggled with the zipper. “Cheap Walmart shit,” he complained. “Nothing’s dry.”
“Oh, great outdoorsman,” Sarah said. She turned on the lantern. “Everything looks overgrown,” she said. She toweled off her head and tossed him the beach towel.
“It’s sandy,” he said.
She bit her lip. “Tell me something nice,” she said.
“Not annoying?” he said.
She unbuttoned her fleece. It smelled like bug spray. “Tell me something nice about me.”
He pushed his glasses up his nose, and dried the rainwater off his stubble. “I like the sound you make when you can’t get a Wordle … It’s a squeak snort.”
She threw a sleeping bag at him. “A snort!’ she said. “That’s all you got?”
He squinted like he was trying to crush her with his eyelids. “I don’t know what you want from me,” he said.
She lay down on her sleeping mat. “I don’t know. I just …” She pulled lint out of her belly button. “Can you just not be yourself,” she said.
He listened to the rain fall on the nylon. “I love that you still bite your lips when you think about …”
She kissed him. It was the first time that they had kissed since. It surprised him. He had to catch his breath. He kissed her back. He slipped his hand under her fleece. And felt her shoulder blades. Her skin was still cold from the swim.
They took off their shirts. “Can you hold me a bit,” she said.
Their limbs tangled. And they lay there locked in silence. Listening to the rain. To the occasional clang. He thought about the sound that crab made when it scurried over the rocks. A sort of clack clack under the water. His fingers squeezed harder … but she felt different. He plucked a single hair off her shoulder. “Ow,” she said.
He stared at the single hair on the tip of his finger.
“Why did you do that?” she said.
“They say your hair keeps growing after …” he said.
“I don’t want to think about that,” she said. She put her shirt back on.
“Sarah, your shoulders are hairy,” he said.
She grabbed Justin’s hand. “That’s a weird thing to say,” she said.
“Touch your back,” he said.
She didn’t like to touch herself. But she also didn’t like how he was staring at her.
She grabbed at her shoulder, and tugged at her skin. He was right. She had back hair. That was weird. Growing old?
“They say hair is good luck …” he said.
She threw her raincoat at him. Then, she bent forward and moved her left hand to the crook of her back.
It was covered in fur. Luscious hair like a ’70s folk singer. She pulled her hand away.
“Jesus,” she said. She touched her back again. It was hirsute. “Justin,” she said, “your face.”
He pressed his fingers to his face. His stubble had grown into a full beard. Like a mountain man. He fumbled through their rucksacks, and pulled out the bag of toiletries. “I’m like Mr. Natural looking for the right tool,” he said. He flipped open her compact mirror. “Holy shit,” he said. He looked like a grizzled prospector.
“Throw me the multitool,” she said. The blade wasn’t sharp enough. And the scissors got tangled after a few snips. He opened his bag and pulled out his good knife. The one his brother got him as a wedding present.
“Lie down,” she said. Using the Gerber knife, she cut his beard. A clean shave.
But, still, the hair came down in great torrents. Like a river run. With salmon in it.
The hair engulfed their bodies and stretched out on their clothes.
“It’s getting tight,” she moaned.
“Get my pants off,” he begged.
They tore off their clothes.
“It’s stuck,” he grunted. “I can’t get it …”
She took his utility knife and cut off her hikers. She looked like a yeti.
He dug out their medical kit, the yellow one, waterproof, with the red cross, and extracted the surgical scissors. He thrashed at her hair with them. The hair gushed out like they’d struck oil. Eventually the joint wore out, and he had to use the scissor arm like a blade. He hacked and sawed at her rivulets of hair till the blade dulled.
She lost the knife. It was buried deep in his beard.
He found the BBQ lighter, a Hail Mary, and tried to burn his hair away. It just stank. And it hurt.
And so she gently, tenderly placed her hand on the Zippo, and said, “Please, let’s just go to bed.” He flicked it closed and tossed it aside.
Exhausted, they lay down together on their inflatable mattresses.
“You always said that I was too hairy,” he said.
She listened to his heartbeat. “I was wrong,” she said. “You look good in a beard.”
He howled at the moon. She laughed.
“That’s a lie,” he said. “I look like a slob.”
And then their hair turned white. He held a lock of hers in his fingers. “It’s the color of your mother’s,” he said. “She always said that I would turn gray before my forties.”
She looked into his face. She thought about how weird the word hirsute was.
“I thought you were only going to say nice things to me?” she said.
He touched her chin. “I did. I loved your mother’s hair.”
And she held him like someone else. Someone hirsute. Someone covered in hair.
And it came out of their belly buttons. Like tree roots. And it came out of their armpits. As bushes and vines. It came out of his penis. Like brambles. And when the pubic hair rushed out of her vagina. She groaned. And there were wildflowers. And she held it. And it cried. She held it to her chest and she nursed it. And they were a family again.
The hair kept them warm. And the storm washed the hair. It smelled of sea salt. In the morning, the world was fresh and new.
Jeremy Morris is a writer whose work has been featured in print, TV, and documentaries. He has won a Sloan Fellowship, the McGill Theater Prize, and the Jubilee Prize. He is a graduate of McGill University and USC’s Peter Stark Producing program. For five years, Jeremy worked for Robert Downey Jr.’s production company as his head of research. As an independent producer, he was drawn to stories at the intersection of folk tales, high technology and human mortality. He was born and raised in Canada and now lives in NYC with his wife, his twin children, and their calico cat.