Hairy Tails

In the end, Marta dared to do it

Discreet, shy and a little scary, as a teenager she got into the habit of hiding under the visor of a cap and always wearing sunglasses. Until one day, he, with a mischievous smile, ripped off her cap and held it high, while she jumped to get it back.

She looked at him angrily, her eyes burning like flames, and when he finally saw her, he was speechless. In fact, he turned red.

—You shouldn’t hide, —he told her.

Since that day, Maria has worn her hair loose and scarlet like live coals. And when they walk together with his arm around her shoulders, he occasionally runs a finger through her hair. This habit has stuck with her.

You'll look like a witch, Claudia

—You’ll look like a witch, Claudia, you’re too old to have long, dark hair, it’s not natural. Plus, it’ll harden your features; you’ll look like a witch. Listen to me.

—I think you’re right, —she said, while he turned his head back to the TV.

When he got to the hairdresser’s, he asked for his hair to be dyed a dark brown like an Italian espresso. And to only cut the ends, not a millimeter more.

When he left, he had a gin and tonic and, from the same bar, bought a ticket to Venice. Only one way, for now.

The day I met a wolf

One day, I came across a real wolf. It was in an Alpine valley. I strayed from the path without knowing why, and he appeared among the ferns. I thought about running away or climbing a tree, but I didn’t move. Not out of fear, but out of fascination. His yellow eyes attracted me like light attracts butterflies to their own end.

I reached out my hand and instead of biting me, he let me stroke his silver back.

Since then, I have had silver hair like the moon and his fur, to remind me that the most frightening paths are often the most worthwhile.

Sender: the life you denied

Letter to Jordi Bosch:

Today marks five years since you left and I felt the need to write you a letter.

I wanted to tell you that I understood the depth of your sadness, I felt it too: no one who has not heard a “we’re sorry, you won’t be able to have children” can imagine how terrible it is. I also understood that you blamed me, my body, for that nonsense, because I did it too, look if we have things in common. I carried an inhuman guilt and you doubled it: “life is wise; if it doesn’t want you to have children, it will be for some reason”. And you closed the door forever.

Attached to this letter, you will find a photo of a little girl. Her name is Carlota but we call her Peach, because when she was born she had soft, pinkish orange fur, which made her look like a freshly picked peach. You’ll see that, at three years old, despite already having half a mane, he still retains that adorable color.

Oh, by the way: he was born from my insides. It seems that what life really wanted was for us to stop having so many things in common.

May it go well.

The women who never leave

Julia has always been better at asking for forgiveness than permission, although the latter is not very common either. At the age of ten, she read the story of Mary Jackson, the first African-American female engineer at NASA, and was fascinated by that world of engines, orbits and numbers, but above all by her.

A woman who had had to ask a judge for permission to study. A woman who did not let herself be turned away.

That same afternoon, Júlia told her mother that she wanted to go to Carol Bruguera to dye her hair magenta, like a galaxy. Her mother refused: she thought it was a whim, a desire to attract attention.

—It is not —Julia said—. It is so that, when I look in the mirror, I always remember that no one can take me away from my aspirations.

And her mother accompanied her.

Nora will never wear braids

Nora walks through the Plaça Major in Manresa, her hair green, like a meadow that has just been wet. But her hair hasn’t always been this color. When her father tried, in vain, to braid her, it was brown.

Every weekend and in the summer they would walk along the Sèquia, when she was very small, holding her hand, and then she would run ahead. Then they would lie down on the grass, very green and sometimes wet, and she wouldn’t agree to go home until he had made up a good story. When he got up, he would remove the strands of grass from her hair, but he always left some in her.

When she left to study in Barcelona, ​​that routine was only repeated in the summers. But when she returned for the last time, in her last year of studies, her father was no longer there.

Nora never wears braids. She prefers her hair loose and the same color as a still damp mountain meadow, so that it is clearly visible from the sky, so that he can look at her from there and every day remember, just like her, his afternoons in the ditch.

Guiding clinical report

Pediatric Dermatology Unit of the Vall d’Hebron Hospital

Patient: F., female, born on 05/07/2021.
Reason for consultation: birth with intense blue hair, without family history.

Over the past few months, blood tests, genetic studies, hair biopsy, imaging tests and continuous observation have been performed. All results have been normal. No structural or metabolic alterations have been detected that explain the pigmentation.

The blue color remains stable, does not show discoloration or respond to topical treatments.

During the visits, F. has shown a sociable, cheerful and extraordinarily affectionate character with all the medical staff. Her development is appropriate for her age, but her way of being in the world seems exceptional.

Conclusion: no clinical or genetic cause has been found for the hair color.

Final note: by exclusion, and as a poetic hypothesis, we can only conclude that her hair is blue simply because it resembles a spring sky.

The secret of a great wine

In La Garriga, near the Cingles de Bertí, there is a small winery known only to a few. The wine made there is not sold on the market: it is bottled by hand and distributed among families in the area. But those who have tasted it know that it is dense, dark, intense. And that it is only released every two years.

The owner maintains two unquestionable rules: anyone who participates signs a pact of silence and, above all, no woman can step on the grapes, because he says they unbalance the must.

Last summer, about fifteen men did the harvest. All of them were corpulent, except for the youngest: with an openwork beret and a linen vest that was too wide, he worked in silence, with his eyes always lowered.

The mill was a party. When you step on the grapes, you can already sense whether the wine will be good. That year, the must was thick, sweet, fragrant. When they all emerged from the sink, the youngest was still there. He looked up between too-soft features. He unbuttoned his vest, took off his beret, and a cascade of burgundy hair fell.

And she said:
—You see, burgundy like Cabernet Sauvignon.

Aina has finally understood

Aina lives in an isolated house near Ripoll, surrounded by forest. When winter lasts, it’s hard for her to go out. It’s not fear, exactly. It’s that strange feeling of not quite knowing where to stand when she walks through the middle of the square.

This morning she put on some old boots that were her mother’s: bright colors, with seventies drawings. She liked them. She went out for a walk. When she passed a girl, she noticed a strange look, half surprised, half amused.

She looked away and climbed up into the forest. After a while, she leaned her forehead against a fir tree. Something sticky had stained her sleeve: resin. She knows that trees secrete it when they are wounded. Like a defense.

Next to her, drops of amber glittered on the bark. Then she understood. She has taken off her woolen hat and let her hair fall over her shoulders. It is amber, like honey.

And it will remind her that no one can hurt her if she does not allow it.

Nil thought he would find peace in flowers

On June 20, 2018, there was absolute silence at the Palau Robert, despite the more than 400 personalities from the world of journalism who filled the room. The winner of the International Photojournalism Award Manuel Outumuro did not take the stage.

Because he was not there.

Since he returned from Mali, a year earlier, Nil had not left the garden. Nor had he spoken again. Completely mute, he dedicated himself to photographing flowers, always pink, sometimes lilac. In winter, cyclamens; in summer, bougainvillea.

Although he never said it, his sister sensed that he hoped that that wound, the one of the horrors of war that he had immortalized, would stop festering. She accompanied him in his silence: they shared teas, looked at the clouds, he took photos and she hugged him from behind. When she tried to get in front of the camera, he kept her away. He never shot.

One September morning, he enlarged the photo he had just taken. At the bottom, his sister’s smile. In the center, a moist gaze. And at the top, floating in front of the clouds, the pink hair with which she had appeared that morning.

A hypnotic pink like bougainvillea.

I don't know if it was the scent or the poison that made me lose my senses

Being a seasonal lavender grower is, in reality, waiting. Waiting in June or July, depending on the whims of the sun and rain, to meet again in Provence with those groups that arrive by coach from different parts of Catalonia. And if one of the boys is your platonic summer love, winter becomes unbearably long.

Pau and I only said “hello” and “good night”, between hugs and swarms of bees. The perfume made everything slower, softer. But even then, for three summers, I didn’t dare say anything else to him.

The fourth year, when I saw him, I hid in the bushes: my hair was disheveled. I stumbled over a beehive and the bees stung me until I lost consciousness.

I woke up in the hospital with his cheeky smile in front of me. They say he carried me in his arms, that he didn’t move from his chair. And that, between the poison and the lavender, I started talking.

Now, when he smells my hair and kisses my head, he says: “even if you dyed it lilac like lavender in June, you will not hide from me again.” And I don’t tell him that I dyed it to always remember that day.