The Harvesters

A whirl… a twirl… and a crash. Then an opaque stillness. Jane's adventurous instincts brought her to her first skydive, defying odds and her soulmate Hannah's pre-admonitions. 

"This structure looks so dilapidated,"
"The guy at the counter looks so creepy,"
"Why dive from here?!"
"This is so far away from the city!"
 "Why is there no one around?"

Hannah's barrage of questions was brushed away for her insecurities, until the parachute failed Jane and landed her into an expanse of nothingness. 

She woke up after an eternity to a dry, choky feeling in her throat. Slowly regaining consciousness, she pulled out her long plait half buried into sand, relieved to find it intact. It was Hannah's favorite—it had taken her almost an hour to braid it from the YouTube tutorial. She would hate to see her labor of love so messed up. 

"Water…" Her feeble voice went unheard. Jane sucked her sticky saliva and tried again to no avail. 

Too weary to move, she lay limp on the soft sandy bed with her precious braid in hand. 

Sometime later, muffled voices, murmurs, and a few short footsteps kindled her hope. She was sure Hannah would bring help. The medley of voices grew louder as a cottony wrap was flung over her. A familiar overpowering stench filled her nostrils, evaporating to the eyes. There was no way she could keep them open now. 

"Get the stretcher stupid! Are you going to carry her all the way in your arms?" she heard in her stupor, as a muscular man dropped her onto a stretcher in haste. 

"Hurry up! We just have 20 minutes to finish," a commanding tone replied.

The words jolted her out of the trance, a myriad of questions crossing her now-alert mind. With Hannah around, she wouldn't have to worry about safeguarding herself, but she had to take the mantle herself now. 

When she forced her droopy eyelids to open, they had nowhere to look in pitch darkness. It seemed like she was tied up and dropped on a lounge chair. At least they were nice enough to make it comfortable? she thought. No, I can't let my guard down. 

"Is someone there?" she called out to echoing walls. "Can someone hear me?" Jane flung herself off her platform and inched her body around the room like a worm, kicking in search of a concave noise.  

At the ornately carved door she was about to thump on, stood a mute spectator. Her lustrous tailbone-length plait trailed behind her like a snake. Before she could kick again, approaching footsteps raised Jane's pulse but she solidified her resolve. Keep calm. You can buy some time to engage these villains. 

Jane groped back to the lounge in a haste and attempted to position herself the way they had left her. The very next second, the door opened; lights turned on. 

"Check if she's awake," the commanding tone from earlier orders.

"She's fully under, boss." a curt reply. 

"Ok, no more wasting time. Have you got the knife ready?"

"A knife?!" Jane fell off the chair to the bewilderment of two long-haired men: Bulging-Biceps and Bulging-Eyes. 

"You're awake?" Bulging-Biceps spoke, feeling wronged. He was the one who carried her in his arms.

"Yes, and I cannot feign anymore! I know I'm careless and stupid and I lose everything I love – my hamsters, my dog, my parakeet but I'm ending this right here. I won't allow you to take my light eyes, or my vitaminized kidneys or my healthy heart! If you must, you can take my long hair. It's the most I can offer against your effort of crashing me down mid-skydive and landing me here. But please—"

"HAAAAAA—" Bulging-Eyes began to guffaw, puncturing Jane's heartfelt monologue. 

"Look at this!" He switched on another set of lights and pulled aside the end-to-end curtains behind Jane. The illuminated room was full of mannequin heads adorned with stunning wigs – blonde, brunette, auburn, red… "We're wig-makers, not organ smugglers!" 

Jane noticed herself in mirrors around this makeshift-salon. The couch she had been on was a hair wash recliner. 

"Call us connoisseurs even… Long hair is a rarity these days, so we lay hands on gifted hair beauties like you, shave them off to meet the ever-increasing demand of human hair wigs from high profile clients. It's just a 20-minute job, then we put you back in place safely." Bulging-Biceps flashed a customer-service smile as he untied her. You'd think he'd been in this position before. 

"Oops… sorry for the trouble. Had I known about this before," Jane said as she tugged at her braid. "I would have let you in on my secret connoisseur-ism too!" Her wig comes off, exposing her thin pixie-cropped hair. 

Dyuti Singh is a fashion industry professional, a yoga teacher and a freelance writer. Her writing career started with journalism in her local paper in 10th grade. You can contact her at [email protected]. This story is part of a collection produced by the Mayflowers Writing Workshop run by author Shazia Omar. To join the next session, please email [email protected].