Unguided, 17: A Bald Move
18 Jun 2021Meowers
( 18.06.3307 )
( Seurinohina )
Oh, hello there. And before you ask why am I bald, I'll give you something like a 'status report', because, well, maybe some people who read my logs now wonder where am I and why am I gone. Or... Who am I kidding, does anybody even care? Hah. So. These are my excuses for not updating the log for a month and a half.
First. Finally I put my tech skills to a (probably) good use again, after a long and somewhat hard period, and now I have a source of credits to sustain my sorry arse if I can't fly for some reason, but it takes several hours a day. And during these hours I write some serious stuff. And also when I have free time (and it sounds really funny now) I need to write a big and none less serious thing, putting much effort, memory and concentration to it. There's no imagination load in describing what I know well for years, but, ummm, it's quite exhausting when detailed. And then I'm planning to write a larger story that would be a bit different from my usual style... Still waiting for more free time and a suitable mindset.
So it's a pain to be my keyboard right now.
Okay. But why am I bald? When Pilots Federation decided to change some of its fundamental protocols, thus giving us, private ship commanders, a chance to roam around the stations freely and without any clearance requests, not just be sticking to the docks like we're contagious, people started to notice that light sources inside those stations are a bit... odd. Unusual. And they make things look... none less odd. It's awfully hard to explain, but I think you know what I'm talking about. And, the most interesting part: you see them once, and from that moment everything that you see, every familiar thing looks... kind of different. Less real. Cartoony. Like cheap toys, but in the 'real' scale. You still recognise reality, objects and familiar faces, but... Now it looks completely different. Colours, materials, everything. Damn! One time I thought my face was plastic, even had to stop and pinch myself. Light reflections are odd, unrealistic, they are too strong and everything looks almost like a mirror, or otherwise, they may completely disappear, giving that 'matte plastic' look. Colours are off as well. My ship has become darker, like, she was looking like a creme-brulee ice cream, but now the colour is like greyish sand. And colours of things are shifting wildly, still depending on light colour, but the intensity seems almost at perceivable maximum. Damn... Everything is odd. And, hey, that's not the case of this mythical 'Space Madness' or something else, doc made me sure. But I still don't want to start hallucinating one day because of it.
So when I disembarked at some station, can't recall which one exactly... I wasn't impressed with what I had seen there. At all.
(Yeah, it's me. I'm not impressed by the view.)
And then recently the 'hair dilemma' topic was raised in some private conversation. What's so interesting in your hair anyway? Or should I say... What was interesting? It grows on your head during your life, and also can turn grey when you become old... But, stop. For some reason all the hair started to look silvery greyish, especially from a distance. What the hell? And... Just look at the volume now, it looks flat, like glued together and then ironed. And yeah, colour is shifting as well. My hair is black so I can't see this, but I guess you can if yours have any other colour.
The decision and experiment plan were made almost instantly, out of a brilliant and randomly appeared idea. Ah, love those brilliant, random and not exactly healthy things. Genuinely. I have to test the light reflections on a bald head, as they may be more powerful than expected. They even can make a light stronger! Sounds ridiculous? Hey, everything that you can see now is looking ridiculous. Old logic doesn't seem to be working anymore. So, bar first. Have to get more courage. And also I have to do it before my brain figures out what the heck exactly I'm going to do.
FOR THE SCIENCE!
(Okay, where's the bar here?)
...Here we go! Go bold, go bald! The location is Hangar, as they have the most powerful flood lights there, to keep the experiment as clean as possible. There's no postprocessing, filters, retouching, editing on these photos, I'm keeping everything 'as is'.
Photo 1. My usual 'black' ponytail that I'll have to grow again. Just... Just look at this thing on my head and compare it with my older photos. Do you call it 'black' hair?! Do you even call it a hair? Okay, okay, let's pretend it's hair. Then why is it so grey?
Photo 2. As hair had to go anyway, I decided to bleach the shit out of it, to make it as white as it can possibly be. What the heck with the light reflection here? Why so little difference from the previous colour?
Photo 3. My head as it looks now. As you can see, the reflection is much weaker even than original black hair. So... The hair is actually smoother than the bald head itself! How can this be?..
(Bald Head Scanner 5000)
So, even if the theory has been disproved, and I can't use my new bald head as a light amplifying device or some kind of reflector for Morse code light signals if my comms go down... But also the upside is that my eyes are still functional and they haven't suffered any damage at all. That experiment led to interesting thoughts. There's certainly still something to do with those light sources and everything, because it's... not quite healthy. Look, we pilots spend so much time in space, and now we have to deal with unexplainable oddities even if we're trying to rest on stations? That could lead to severe consequences.
Maybe I should start a Bald Pilots Movement to flood Pilots Federation offices with complaint letters, flood the independent forums, flood everything with photos of heads... We should also boycott growing hair until they fix something here... There's also a nice slogan ready. "To baldly go where no hair has gone before".
(Yeah, you said that's a cringe, but hey, you know me, I'm a professional at putting cringe into my logbooks!)
Okay, if I put a helmet on, people won't see it...
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Next part: #18: Twenty Five Minutes
Next part: #18: Twenty Five Minutes