Prompt by u/everburningblue:
Everyone’s hair had spontaneously fallen out. There seem to be no other strange simultaneous occurrences, but humanity is seriously weirded out.
Mark watched the passersby from his seat outside the restaurant. It was a cloudy spring day, but everyone wore hats like they were protecting their heads from the sun. Mark took a sip from his cappuccino and relaxed in his seat. He could sit here all day.
Expensive caps, knitted hats, scarfs tied under the chin and even the rare bowl hat. Every type of headdress walked by his seat. One woman walked passed wearing a wig. Mark noticed a few people glare at her in envy.
Mark knew it was a wig, because a week ago, everyone’s hair had just fallen off. All over the world, at the exact same time.
Obviously, this resulted in a mild case of mild hysteria as everyone thought they were hit with radiation or something and were going to die, but it soon blew over, and now some people with fast growing hair already had a bit of visible fuzz on their scalps.
Mark finished his coffee and put his cup down. He rubbed his hand over his own bald head. It felt weird to not have hair. He’d never shaved all his hair off before. He didn’t wear a wig, he didn’t have one. Wig’s were rare now. Most people had raided the stores in the first couple of days, and after that the prizes rose exponentially. Mark could never afford one now.
He didn’t mind it too much. Being bald didn’t look terrible on him. He didn’t think it looked terrible on most people to be honest. Bald heads, though a little unusual for most people, were easy to get used to.
The problem lied in the rest of the facial hair.
Along with the hair on top of their heads, everyone had also lost their eyebrows and eyelashes. To be completely fair, it looked utterly stupid. People seemed to lack expression. Their eyes looked strangely empty without their eyelashes. Most people didn’t know how to draw on eyebrows, and fake eyelashes had become just as expensive as wigs.
Mark grinned as he saw another woman pull her cap lower over her face as she walked by. Maybe he should have felt bad, but honestly, it was a nice reversal. How often had people looked at him and thought he looked stupid? Thought he wasn’t proper?
He paid for his coffee and walked into the street. A man did a double take when he spotted Mark’s face. Mark tried not to feel too superior. It wasn’t that man’s fault he didn’t buy fake lashes in bulk. He couldn’t have known what would happen.
Still, it was very difficult to not feel a little narcissistic when you were one of the only people in the world with perfect lashes and replacements enough to last until his own grew back. It was difficult not to grin when seeing sloppily drawn on eyebrows, when his were so perfect he might as well still have real hair.
Mark tried not to let it get to his head. But he didn’t try very hard.