Red Means You’re Dead
The guy had been right. Jodi woke without the hangover most long sleeps leave behind. Rather, she felt refreshed and unnaturally optimistic. Happy had been an alien sensation since her mother had announced her decision to leave. Jodi smiled. No matter how unexpected, this was a happy feeling. Happy and hairy. Amazing what something as simple as survival will do for a person.
“Jumping Jehosephat, it’s like Planet of the Apes in here!” A petite brunette bounced up beside her in the shower queue.“Did you know a body could grow so much hair in four months?”
Jodi grinned. “I had no idea. Thank god for fast orbit transfers, huh? Imagine if we’d slept twice as long.” The fact that she was wrapped in a bath towel, sporting more leg and armpit hair than she’d ever thought possible, did not dim her mood. That didn’t happen until she’d waited half a lifetime to get to the front of the line. By then, she was just cranky enough that she didn’t care how long anyone else had to wait for her to finish. A girl had to do what a girl had to do.
Much cream, three showers, some tweezing and oceans of shampoo later, Jodi was at least physically clean. She wondered as she brushed her teeth how the craft’s storage tanks were coping with all the suds.
The little brunette reappeared beside her in the long mirror over the hand basins. “From Planet of the Apes to the missing link.” The woman examined her still furry eyebrows. “Millions of years of evolution in only two showers. Not bad progress, eh?”
Jodi smiled. “You too, huh?” It had taken her three showers to get sorted because she’d kept finding missed hairy pieces on her legs. Surely every other woman on the flight would have the same issue.
The woman nodded, winced, and started plucking.
“On the upside, I’ve got a lot more hair on my head, and my fingernails are amazing. I actually thought they’d refuse to grow, just out of fear.” Most times, Jodi was a nail chewer. Correction: unless she was sleeping, which she’d been doing for quite some time now, Jodi chewed her nails.
The woman handed her a nail file. “Here, it’ll help keep you from reverting to form.”
“Thanks.” Jodi took the gift and moved out of the way so others could see themselves for the first time in an age.
Once the accrued grime had gone down the drain, there w
