Newton’s Curls: A Short Story

Raymond can hairly contain himself

I exhale deeply and feel my pulse accelerate as I stare down at the beautiful, silvery locket of hair beneath the glass cage. There is some palpable, sexual energy in the air. I am drawn towards it as if by some immense force of magnetism, something impossible to define. A woman, early sixties, smiles at me and offers me a pen. I realise suddenly that I have become completely and irreparably disconnected with my surroundings and briefly forget who I am or why am I here.

But the feeling quickly passes. The momentary confusion and voluptuous, passionate excitement I experienced but a moment before has now simply evaporated like some force- some gravity- has been lifted from my shoulders. I am wearing an atrocious blue academic gown and a suit from John Lewis which cost less than a hundred pounds. The lady before me is in fact, real, and asking me to sign my name in the matriculation book. I become vaguely aware that there are many people in the queue behind me waiting eagerly- almost frantic with excitement- to see the hair and the book beneath me. But I don’t let them- I subtly move my body to eclipse the line of sight towards the strands of Newton’s hair, excited by the power I have in this instant. I consider never leaving the line, never signing my name. Simply asking the lady before me if I can just take one small locket of Newton’s hair, or even just taste one, just one time. I am almost desperate now to caress the golden strands with my calloused fingers and feel the weight of them between my palms.

“Excuse me,” the lady before me announces. My reverie is shattered, and sound returns to the world. “Please sign your name here.”

But I do not want to. Here, in the Wren Library, there is but one thing I want. Nevertheless, I relent, realising additionally that my brow is now drenched in sweat brought on by the palpitations I had in the presence of Newton’s hair.

The pen nearly slips from my fingers. My mouth is watering. Just there, beneath what must be one, two centimetres of glass at the most, is, I now understand, the only thing I’ve ever wanted from life. I was drawn here, drawn to this place. Enchanted by the concrete busts of old, dead men. I am undergoing an awakening, a transformation, a metamorphosis. I sign my name, large, looping cursive. A drop of sweat falls from my nose onto the page and the ink runs as if the pen is a scalpel and I am bleeding the paper below me.

Without warning, I cry out, a visceral, animalistic cry, and overturn the display case with great ferocity. There are gasps as the glass smashes, and the lady who offered the pen physically recoils.

There, on the floor now, are the strands. The hairs. I have liberated them, liberated my true loves from their icy confinement. They are mine, now. I reach down to pick them up. They feel like silk on my skin.

I am sitting in the Head Porter’s office with old, rusty manacles around my wrists and legs. I am not sure how many people are in the room, because I am wearing a blindfold and I am deeply terrified. “Expulsion,” a deep voice says. “Drowning,” offers another. I wonder what they will do with me. They tried to take the hair, take it away from me. The world is cruel. I am in love with Newton’s hair.

[Editor’s note: Please don’t try this (this is the party line until June 29th, after which the University gives me my degree and has no hold over me anymore)]