The Art of the Bald Head

A long time ago, In a land called Kentucky, There once lived a man, Who wasn't very lucky, And one day he fell, Right into a well, And his situation was very yucky.

‘Twas a lovely spring day, with confidence I say, and the well was crumbling apart. His woman had said, “Our love is now dead,” and this statement broke the man’s heart.

It turned into fall, and she built up a wall, to keep the poor man away. He gave out a call, asked her out to the ball, he just wanted her to stay.

She was appalled, as he was completely bald, and nothing he did could hide it. That is why on the floor she was sprawled, and completely enthralled, by the shine his hairless dome could emit.

“Yes, Madam,” he said. “I am proud of my smooth shiny chrome dome. I embrace my hairless head. My secret? Moisturizing sunscreen applied four times a day.”

"Just what I wanted to hear," she said. "I'm a photographer & I have a series in mind: art's greatest sculptures reflected in a shiny bald head. It will involve lots of travel, but I'm willing to pay every expense. Will you work with me?" He nodded, sun gleaming off his noggin.

This man must be crazy! In fact she was so shocked by this proposal that she immediately accepted it, and off they went snapping photos of great works of art reflected on his shiny bald head all over the world. It went viral on social media, with many replicating the duo’s deeds.

The idea was so outlandish and funny that as originators they made millions. Before long he was spending thousands of dollars a week getting his bald head waxed and shined so that the reflections remained sharp. On the downside the skin on his scalp was now thinning.

As it thinned, the capillaries in it slowly began bursting. This initially left him looking a bit like a young Mikhail Gorbachev, but as time went on the red deepened in color and the entirety of his scalp from his eyebrows up was the color of port.

The colouration didn’t stop there. Over the following weeks it permeated downwards, the pigmentation changing colour every day. Some muted, some pastel, some lurid. Eventually, when two small circles of original skin on the balls of his feet finally closed up the process was over

Full-sheathed in kaleidoscope skin, heart throbbing painful under coils of panic, he steps forward but staggers, slips - now lands, one knee in mud. Like this, he stays. Day becomes like a flashing strobe. In time, his skin becomes keratinous and jagged, but ever more vibrant.

He sheds his crusted skin in a flurry of motion, and all at once his creamy center is exposed. He is now a squishy baby, ensconced in a slimy finish, with wide, wondering eyes, and mouth agape. His metamorphosis is complete.