The front of the building, a glass window. Stuck to which are posters, posters on where to go for yoga, vegan foods and child care. Within the building, there are four chairs next to a glass panel door, which is next to the window. Soft padded chairs that belie the fact that they are incredibly uncomfortable after three minutes. Within the first chair a drab, old man sits. His face drawn down as if each feature were in a race to reach his toes. The man sits with a hunched back, his arms lying on his knees, palms turned up as if awaiting a gift from the ceiling. Every few seconds, he twitches and fiddles with his right ear, in which is a hearing aid. To his right in the next chair, is an equally old, frail woman. She sits bent over her handbag, which she cradles defensively in her lap. Every few seconds, she frantically searches her surroundings for anyone that looks as if they might make a go at stealing her handbag. In the chair to her right, sits a middle aged, dark tanned man. His moustache and black hair suggest Mediterranean but his posture and general aura suggest Americano. He sits with a straight back, a house and garden magazine lying in his lap, it was in the seat before he sat down and he didn’t know what to do with it, so in his lap it went. Next to him, sits Adam.
        The four stare forlornly ahead of them, each with a grim look upon their faces. Each face different, but all conveying the same message. Morbid terror. The old man’s nervous twitch, coupled with his constant sweating. The old woman’s nervous glances coupled with her restlessness. The middle aged man’s strict, straight posture coupled with his nervous fiddling with his magazine. Adam’s inability to keep still, coupled with his Red Bull induced eager to run a mile in a second. They all show the signs. The signs of an unshakable fear. They can’t run, they could probably hide, but it’d do them no good in the end.
        Before the four chairs of fear is a desk, behind the desk is where it all happens.
        As the minutes pass, the fear increases. The signs amplify, like the fat controller is slowly spinning the “Physical Fear” dial for each of them.
        The old man cracks first.
        “I can’t take it!” he wails, slowly rising from his chair. He starts pacing in front of the others, as if he were about to make a monumentally retarded speech. “Why do they make us wait? Why, I ask! Is it to make us sweat, to make us that much more agitated? What is the purpose of this? This is no way to treat a man of my years. I’m a part, an integral part, of the greatest generation that ever lived! I fought in a war, a proper war and the thanks I get is this? This...this...waiting!? I shan’t take it anymore! I demand attention!”
        A sound from beyond the desk, a woman in a pant suit rounds the desk, grabs the old man by the crook of his arm and leads him back to his seat. She whispers some soothing words, turns around and returns back to beyond the desk.
        The four sit in fear once more. The old man starts his ritual again, palms to the ceiling, intermittently fingering his hearing aid. The others never ceased their rituals.
        More time passes, they continue as before. Until there is movement once more beyond the desk, another smartly dressed woman comes from behind the desk.
        “Mr. Mantiani?” she calls.
        The middle aged man rises sheepishly from his chair, placing the magazine down in his place. He looks at the others, a weary smile across his face. The kind of smile that suggests that he is relieved that his time has finally come.
        “If you’d just follow me, Mr. Mantiani. How are you....” the woman trails off as she leads Mr. Mantiani beyond the desk.
        Then there were three.
        The old woman’s rocking increases, as if in attempt to propel herself beyond the desk at great velocity.
        Adam stirs, restlessly. Knee deep in the throes of too much caffeine and sugar, he can barely keep still or keep his attention on one place. His eyes constantly shifting from one poster to the next, craning his neck in multiple directions so he can see all the posters.
        Breaking Adam from his aimless vellication is the sound of movement from beyond the desk.
        Yet another woman, this time donned in a cheap looking t-shirt-jeans combo, comes around. She spots her prey and homes in.
        “Mrs. Preen, how well you look!” she exclaims, “I’m afraid I’m running a little behind schedule. Would be a dear and wait another ten minutes?” and before Mrs. Preen could even respond, the woman was gone, back beyond the desk.
        Many minutes pass, the clock would suggest twenty of them, but there’s no telling if that were true. The old man is getting restless once more, showing signs that he might sporadically, painfully propel himself up from the chair and conduct another pointless monologue. But before he can act, movement once more.
        The t-shirt-jeans combo woman has returned, without a word she walks over to Mrs. Preen, carefully takes the crook of her arm. Mrs. Preen, despite her age, shows her cat like reflexes, in protecting her handbag. Mrs. Preen is lead beyond the desk.
        Then there were two.
        Adam looks across at the old man. The old man looks back at Adam. A moment is exchanged, one of sharing abject terror, a terror exacerbated by their dwindling numbers. As a foursome, there was the fictive ideal that all would be well, that everything was destined to be fine. But now the numbers had shrunk, their force and been diminished by the powers that lie beyond. Now there were two and they were terrified.
        The old man cracked again, he rose from his chair once more. He paused half way from the rising in pain, his back having harshly reminded the old man that it didn’t take too kindly to unsolicited movement.
        After reasserting power of his errant spine, the old man spoke, “they torture us! Those evil harpies! They prolong the suffering! They are not of this world, not human! They cannot treat us like this, they cannot make a man of my age, of my generation, suffer in such an indecent way! I demand attention, once more! I demand it!”
        Adam had been staring at the old man, who at the end of his rant, had raised his fist to the ceiling in defiance. Adam would’ve continued staring at the old man, if it weren’t for the intervention from beyond the desk.
        “Mr. Rogers, boy,what have they been feeding you. All riled up like that, it’s not healthy for a man of your ageing years” said a different woman once more, she took the crook of Mr. Rogers arm and ushered him beyond. Mr. Rogers stared back at Adam, a look of increased terror smacked across his face.
        Then, there was only one.
        It was another thirty minutes until they came for Adam, he had been hopping from chair to chair, in the hopes of getting a better view at beyond the desk, but to no avail.
        “And you must be Adam,” said a small blond haired woman, not too well dressed but a show of effort was present, “and how are you today? I’m Gigi, I’m ever so pleased to meet you.”
        Adam gulped, his mouth and throat suddenly drier than a hundred-and-twenty year old vagina in a lubricant-free zone. His head started spinning, he paused at the lip of beyond, he could now see into the realms of the other side and it wasn’t a pretty site.
        To his left, a few meters away were a row of chairs leading away from him. High back leather chairs, with foot rests and towels draped over the backs of them. In the farthest chair sat a gargantuan beast of a woman, more folds than a Shar Pei litter after a two hour bath soak. She sat with her feet not merely on the rest but enveloping the rest, as if the skin were trying to assimilate new material for further expansion. One of the women who had come out to the chairs stood behind her, nattering away whilst she wielded sharp metallic objects and fiddled with the gargantuan woman’s head.
        On the opposite side of them room, directly in front of Adam was a similar row of chairs. The nearest on empty, but the three beyond were occupied with faces familiar to Adam. Each of the occupants turned to Adam as he entered, each with a vacant expression slapped across their faces. They looked as if they recognised Adam, but only through a drunken haze. Behind each of them stood their own woman, a metallic tool apiece.
        Gigi turned back to Adam, who had just been standing there, dumbstruck. She took the crook of his arm and led him to the vacant chair, she placed a gown over his chest and lap. She informed him that this was to catch any detritus by-product from the procedure. Adam nodded dumbly. She went on to tell him that this was a painless procedure and as with every routine of its kind, it could be customised to the patient. Adam didn’t know how to reply, so Gigi said that she would handle that for him, she was fully qualified for that.
        In front of Adam was a huge, distorted mirror. underneath that was a ledge which had a basin depressed within it, a faucet at the middle of that, red liquid slowly dripping from it. To the right of the basin, a phone. To the left, a stack of cards and a rubber duck.
        Adam asked what was she going to use, to conduct the procedure. He said he didn’t like the idea of anything dangerous going in or around his head. Gigi laughed away his concern, informing him that injuries were highly irregular and fatalities didn’t happen quite as often as some would say. Adam asked how often would some say, Gigi tip-toed around the subject, showing Adam the first implement she was going to be using.
        The implement, what she referred to as, her favourite, was a dual piece of metal. One end was pointed, sharp and the other end was rounded, with a hole in each separate part. Gigi inserted her fingers into the holes, and started the procedure.
        Adam cringed, he couldn’t feel anything, but he also couldn’t see anything. His over active imagination filled in the gaps. He imagined brain debris spilling on to his lap, he looked down relieved to find nothing pink forming in his lap. But not even this site could reassure him, his mind told him that it could be that all the debris had fallen down his back. With careful directioning of the debris, Gigi could do anything, said Adam’s mind.
        “Oh, I feel so much better! Like a totally new person!” squealed Mrs Preen as she walked behind Adam. Adam could see in the distorted mirror a totally different woman walking behind him, a woman that shared Mrs Preen’s physique, but her head was some how different, lacking. But he couldn’t put his finger on what had happened.
        Gigi mumbled away, about all kinds of unrelated things. She was obviously trying to get Adam’s mind away from the subject of his procedure. But he couldn’t bring himself out of his encompassing fear, every molecule of his being was in a constant state of panic. He’d thought about running a mile again, but, he didn’t want to run the mile to find that he had a metal object embedded into his skull. He couldn’t risk it, he liked his skull metal free.
        “Do you watch Talent Show - A Show For The Talentless By The Talentless?” enthusiastically asked Gigi.
        Adam mumbled in the negative.
        “Yeah, it’s a stupid show,” mumbled a deflated Gigi, “my husband says, ‘it sure does it what it says in the title!’” and Gigi laughed.
        Adam didn’t, there was no place for laughter in a state of panic. Although, their might be a place for crazy laughter, he pondered.
        “Okay, I’m now going to use this,” said Gigi, picking up another implement. The implement had a wide, spherical base that tapered upwards to a nozzle which used some kind of piston system to diffuse liquid outwards.
        Adam frantically tried to get up, he couldn’t get up, he was stuck!
        “Calm down, it’s okay. See?” Gigi activated the device, causing a fine mist to be ejected from the smaller end of the device, she had directed on her own arm. Adam noted that her skin didn’t melt and nor did it turn to stone. Gigi’s display mollified Adam somewhat and stopped trying to break free of his chair.
        “Well I never!” exclaimed Mr. Mantiani, “I feel completely different!”
        Adam looked in the mirror as he walked past, again he looked changed, just like Mrs. Preen.
        Adam felt his head soften, liquify. He started to panic but Gigi reassured him that this was only natural and really had no detrimental effect, just like it had done to her arm, nothing harmful.
        Gigi continued, taking another sharp implement, sharp like the first one but slightly different, its edges were more jagged.
        “Adam, this is going really well. I’m very pleased with your progress. You’re doing ever so well!” chirped Gigi, whilst she applied more pressure to Adam’s head, more liquid, more metal-on-metal noises.
        “Oh my, now that’s what I call treatment!” bellowed Mr. Rogers, “treatment befitting someone of my fine standing, indeed!”
        Adam looked in the mirror once more, a different Mr. Rogers beamed a smile back at Adam as he passed.
        Adam started shaking violently, he didn’t want to change, he didn’t want to be any different than he was now. How could they do this? Why would they do this? This isn’t right, this isn’t humane! Adam started to scream.
        The other women, the ones who had been dealing with Mrs Preen, Mr Mantiani and Mr. Rogers came over to investigate Adam. They all concentrated their attention on the back and top of Adam’s head.
        “That’s a fine job you’re doing!” said one woman.
        “Yeah, Gigi, gorgeous work!”
        “Fabulous work darling, just fabulous!”
        “Ahh, you guys” blushed Gigi.
        “Like, totally awesome, I so like what you did here,” said another woman, Adam felt someone poking the back of his head.
        Adam watched in the distorted mirror, as the women crowed and pestered his poor head. Each admiring Gigi’s handiwork. After five minutes, they each left.
        “There, done!” exclaimed Gigi in a show of jazzy hands.
        “What? Err, what happened?” asked Adam, dazed and confused.
        “I’m all done, it’s all gone now, all better!”
        “What’s all gone, what have you done to me!? I don’t feel any different, but what have you done, you’ve done something to me! Something has changed, I just can’t feel it yet! Help!” Adam was all panicky and flustered, his restraints had been removed and Adam jumped from his chair and wheeled on Gigi, “hah! You’ll never catch me now! Hah-hah!” and Adam ran beyond the desk, beyond the chair, dived through the glass window, picked his cut, bleeding self up and maniacally ran down the street.
        The women huddled.
        “Another runner” sighed one.
        “It’s happening more often than not.”
        “What is the world coming to?”
        “It was good work, Gigi, don’t let it get you down.”
        “I know,” replied Gigi, shaking her head sadly, “I know.”
        “Yeah Gigi, a lovely haircut.”